ECP successfully conducts EMS mock exercise

Will provide info about polling stations through SMS to 8300 starting Monday

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday successfully conducted a mock exercise of the Election Management System (EMS) on an experimental basis, yielding useful and encouraging results.

An ECP spokesperson said that presiding officers, on the whole, managed to deliver results satisfactorily. However, connectivity challenges at certain points during the exercise caused minor issues in transmitting results to some presiding officers. “These challenges are being promptly addressed.”

A comprehensive trial was initiated, involving the participation of returning officers’ offices at 859 locations nationwide, he said, adding that this comprehensive test encompassed Fiber/DSL connectivity, EMS app log-in, usage, and the steps for results transmission and editing.

It effectively accomplished the transmission of results by presiding officers and the compilation of results by ROs through EMS.

It’s noteworthy that the primary goal of EMS is to compile and tabulate results at the RO level. Throughout this exercise, all ROs completed the compilation and tabulation of results without encountering any issues.

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If a presiding officer encounters difficulty in transmitting results to the RO via mobile phone, they are instructed to personally deliver the election results to the RO’s office.

Meanwhile, the ECP finalised arrangements to provide comprehensive information about polling stations through SMS to 8300 starting Monday.

According to the spokesperson, from Monday onwards, voters can acquire their voting information by sending their Computerised National Identity Card number via SMS to 8300.

This service enables each voter to discover the name of their assigned polling station and other related voting details. The spokesperson highlighted that there was a service fee of Rs2 per SMS for this facility.

Urging all voters to promptly acquire voting details for themselves and their family members, he emphasised the importance of avoiding any inconvenience at the polling station.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has been notified about this initiative