‘Prove your identity’: Voter verification campaign extended

Provincial election commissioners say 70 per cent of the verification process is complete.

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to continue the ongoing countrywide campaign for verification of electoral rolls till October 31, a day before the deadline was due to expire, ‘to ensure accuracy and credibility,’ according to an official statement issued by their media office on Thursday. 

The ECP has undertaken a door-to-door campaign to verify eligible voters based on data provided by the National Database and Registration Authority, which was due to be completed by September 30. The verification process was launched to eliminate bogus voters of which there are some 37 million on the basis of computerised national identity cards. The commission met under the chairmanship of Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Hamid Ali Mirza and decided to extend the deadline in view of the floods in Sindh and the law and order situation in parts of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). The requests for extension were made by Sindh and K-P legislatures. All four provincial election commissioners informed the ECP that nearly 70 per cent of the verification process has been completed across the country. It is in the disaster-struck and violence-prone areas that verification of voters is being carried out.

Secretary ECP Ishtiak Ahmed Khan stated 200,000 officials are going door-to-door to ensure voters are registered for the next election. He has asked political parties and voters to cooperate with the teams to ensure accuracy in electoral rolls for free, fair and credible elections in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2011.