The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday was informed that the Project Management Unit (PMU) was working diligently on electronic voting machines (EVMs) and i-voting for overseas
Pakistanis.
An ECP meeting was held chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, according to a statement issued by the commission.
Apart from members of the ECP, the election commission secretary and other senior officers also attended the meeting.
The provincial election commissioners of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa also participated in the meeting through video link.
The participants of the meeting were further informed that expression of interest (EoI) was published in various newspapers on April 12 to check the availability and quality of EVMs.
Later, nine companies obtained papers for EoI from the commission.
The deadline for submission of papers was April 15 and seven companies submitted their EoI.
These companies will give a detailed briefing on their products to the ECP in May this year. After that, the ECP will start working on the pilot project and operational feasibility with the selected companies.
The ECP instructed the PMU officials to complete the work on this project as soon as possible so that the commission could take necessary steps for this purpose.
At the same time, the commission is constantly working on i-voting. For this purpose, a modern research and development wing has been set up in collaboration with cyber security specialists to study and observe experiments and systems on i-voting implemented in different countries.
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Work is also underway on various options given to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for this purpose.
The safest and easiest of all these options will soon be pilot tested.
The ECP was briefed on the progress of the work of reviewing the electoral rolls.
The electoral body directed the provincial election commissioners to closely monitor this work and ensure its satisfactory completion.
The commission was briefed about the arrangements made so far for holding local government elections in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.
The ECP expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made so far and directed its special secretary to monitor all arrangements on a daily basis, especially timely printing of electoral rolls and provision of districts. The secretary was further directed to report to the commission to ensure timely completion of all election arrangements.
The ECP was briefed that the necessary maps and other data needed for completing the delimitation would be received from the provinces by the end of this week.
The commission has arranged training for the delimitation committees. The delimitation of the constituencies of National and provincial assemblies will be completed on August 3 this year as per schedule.
The ECP issued instructions to ensure timely and merit-based completion of the process.
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