Bibi Jamila, resident of Mehmoodabad Karachi, had polled five times PHOTO: AFP/FILE
The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) informed an election tribunal on Wednesday that 17,504 votes cast in the PS-114 of Karachi were bogus as they were either cast by someone else or had invalid national identity card numbers.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s candidate Irfanullah Marwat had won the May 11 general elections on the provincial assembly seat in question, defeating his rival Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) candidate, Rauf Siddiqui. Afterwards, the MQM’s candidate had challenged the results.
The tribunal, headed by Sindh High Court’s former judge Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, had directed NADRA on August 26 to verify voters’ thumb impression. On Wednesday, NADRA officials submitted a report saying it had carried out the examination of the electoral material.
The authority informed that it had received material in respect of the total 92,731 polled votes for authentication or verification through the automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS).
There were 14,234 used counterfoils with invalid NIC numbers written on them which NADRA had never issued. Some 1,065 such votes were observed at the polling station number 64 and 719 at the polling station number 69.
The report said 378 votes found unregistered in the PS-114 constituency were polled at the polling station number 53, 22 and 79. There were 792 duplicate votes polled by 1,602 voters. One such voter Bibi Jamila, daughter of Gul Muhammad, resident of Mehmoodabad Karachi, had polled her vote five times at the polling station number 66.
“A total of only 10,007 votes were authenticated by the AFIS. This meant that the fingerprint affixed on the counterfoil at the time of issuance of ballot paper correctly matched the fingerprint data of registered voter with NADRA,” the report confirmed. There are 29 polling stations, where the polled votes as per the statement of count are greater than the number of the received used counterfoils.
The report further disclosed that a total of 3,270 votes failed authentication, which means that someone else had voted against the ID number mentioned on the used counterfoil. For example, Muhammad Arif Sattar, son of Abdul Sattar, resident of Azam Town, had polled 44 votes at the polling station number 64.
Ink problem
Furthermore, the report said a large number of fingerprints on the used counterfoils could not be processed through the AIFS due to poor quality of fingerprints.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2013.
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