The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday revealed that there were around 4.8 million voters included in the electoral rolls without any physical verification.
A province-wise breakdown of such entries shows that among these unverified voters 3.2 million are in Punjab, 0.662 million in Sindh, 0.583 million in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 0.167 million in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and 0.163 million in Balochistan.
The revelation by the ECP secretary irked members of the parliamentary panel on election matters who demanded that either these voters be verified or be deleted from the electoral list.
ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmed Khan told the committee that in some cases addresses of voters could not be verified during the door-to-door campaign.
All of them were holders of genuine Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) and cannot be disenfranchised under the law. He said the holders of such CNICs were embedded in a family structure and the details of the entire family tree were available to establish their identity.
In July, the ECP unveiled the new electoral list carrying over 84 million voters. The new lists were compiled on the basis of CNICs.
Senator Sughra Imam of the Pakistan Peoples Party pointed out that on an average there were over 21,000 unverified entries from each of the 148 constituencies in Punjab – enough to change the entire electoral scenario.
The ECP secretary pointed out that there were 37 million unverified entries in the electoral rolls used for the 2008 elections, but nobody had an objection. He said it was the Election Commission which, with the help of the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA), not only uncovered the flaw, but also effectively addressed it.
“Had we not developed the electoral rolls ensuring one person-one vote, the 2013 elections would also be held on basis of the same flawed list,” he added.
On the scepticism expressed by some members over the commission’s reliance for preparation of electoral rolls on NADRA – an institute under the administrative control of the ministry of interior— the ECP secretary disclosed that before entering into an agreement with NADRA, concerns had been conveyed to the interior ministry and it had been made clear that the ministry’s interference would not be acceptable.
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Muhammad Ishaq Dar proposed that NADRA be brought out of the interior ministry’s clutches and placed under the administrative control of the Election Commission to ensure transparency of the electoral rolls.
Anushe Rehman of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) raised question over the preparation of the electoral rolls on the basis of new census blocks which were not ratified by the Council of Common Interest (CCI). She said the new blocks had drastically affected the population of provinces. The ECP secretary, however, said that the addition in the number of census blocks can make no change in the number of voters.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 17th, 2012.
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PAKISTAN IS A ISLAMIC COUNTRY. NO BODY HAS ANY IMMUNITY IN HO;Y QURAN>
@shuja:
More than 70 per cent people cannot read n write, so how can you expect voters to verify it by themselves....
Every voter has been given a chance to check in voterlists.We as a nation do not deserve to vote.It is duty of every voter get corrected error if any.
Reasons are being sorted out for rigging through legitimate way!