Voters of unverified status are genuine: NADRA chief

Says they were not present at homes when the ECP teams came to verify their details.

ISLAMABAD:

The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) on Saturday claimed that the names appearing in the electoral rolls under the ‘not verified’ category were not fake identities. Instead, these people were not present at their homes when the Election Commission teams came to verify their details.

Not a single voter among 4.8 million put under the ‘not verified’ category in the new electoral list was registered without valid documentation, Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik said at a press conference on Saturday. “A wrong perception was being created about this category as if these were bogus voters,” he said.

Nadra assisted the election authorities in compiling the country’s first electoral rolls on the basis of computerised national identity cards.

“You can say that these are the people who did not provide their consent on which address their votes be registered. The majority of them have the same address in the column of permanent and present addresses and their votes were registered on their permanent addresses,” Malik said.

Some parliamentarians during a meeting of special parliamentary committee on election matters on Friday had expressed doubts about authenticity of these 4.8 million voters and had demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Nadra to expel them from the voters’ list. In his press conference, Malik strongly dispelled doubts about the validity of these registered voters and claimed that these are all genuine people.

“Due to some reason the people named under ‘not verified’ category could not be verified when ECP enumerators approached their residences during last year’s door-to-door verification campaign. Either they were not at home or enumerators could not approach them during the campaign for one reason or the other,” Nadra chief said.

To prove his claim, he shared their documentation status. He said not only do all of these 4.8 million people have valid CNICs but, according to Nadra database, 1.01 million among them have bank accounts, 680,826 possessed machine readable passports, 321,907 have been BISP/Baitul Maal beneficiaries, 148,761 had been provided flood relief, 168,799 were taxpayers, 158,882 are government servants, 3,565 individuals had arms licences. Interestingly of these people 209,488 checked their votes through SMS service, he added.

69 lawmakers, six judges among ‘not verified category’

According to Nadra data among these voters who were put under ‘not verified category’ are 69 lawmakers, six judges of superior courts, a number of senior government officials and many prominent personalities who did not bother to contact ECP to check if they were registered as voters or on which address they were registered.

Nadra says most of those who have been put under this category are the ones considered educated and well to do people.

96% population has CNICs

Tariq Mailk said a total of 928 million citizens above 18 years of age have so far been issued CNICs which according to him covers 96% of eligible population, of these 93. 5% have same permanent and present address while other 6.5% have different permanent and present address in their CNICs.

Procedure

Elaborating the procedure adopted for registration of voters Mailk said when the previous list compiled in 2007-08 was handed over by ECP to Nadra it found dubious voters in the list who were removed immediately. The new draft list compiled on the basis of CNICs carried over 80 million individuals was handed over to ECP which carried out door to door verification process for each voter. Those who were missed out for one reason or the other during the door to door verification were put under ‘not verified’ category and highlighted in bold under ECP directions. However he explained that none of these were fake voters.

Once the door-to-door campaign was over, he said, a preliminary list was displayed for general public to check and all the valid complaints were addressed. The final list was prepared after this process which, he said, was still open to changes if any one has any valid complaint.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2012.