A single voter in a Karachi constituency cast his vote 44 times. PHOTO: AFP
ISLAMABAD:
Everything is possible in Pakistan – and it is not a cliché. There can be hardly any democratic country in the world where one voter had cast as many as 44 votes in a short time.
This is not the single case. There are a number of persons, men as well as women, who had cast multiple votes in different constituencies during this year’s general elections. The identities of these persons have been established now, thanks to use of modern technology for the first time in country.
National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) through its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) has established authenticity of voters by conducting forensic analysis of election material. A number of complaints were filed with election tribunals after the polls but they had sent only half a dozen or so cases to Nadra for verification of voters.
One such constituency was NA-256 where Mutahidda Quami Movement’s (MQM) Iqbal Muhammad Khan had won, bagging 151,788 votes. The runner-up was Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Muhammad Zubair Khan who had took the initiative of contesting the results.
During forensic analysis, thousands of voters could not be verified due to what Nadra called ‘bad thumb impressions’ and were not verifiable. Yet those that could be verified revealed that a number of voters polled multiple votes. One of them was Waseem Anwar Hussain who polled a total of 35 votes at the polling station No 34.
According to Nadra’s thumb impression verification reports filed in post-election tribunals, another voter, Shakir Zaheer, had cast 7 votes at the polling station No 168 in the same constituency. In the same constituency, Muhammad Faizanuddin had cast eight votes.
The trend is not limited to Karachi or to a particular party. In the NA constituency NA 202, Shikarpur, a woman, Hajra wife of Ghulam Nabi, had cast four votes. Muhammad Ibrahim Jatoi of National Peoples Party had won from the constituency, securing as many as 54,890 votes.
The maximum number of multiple votes cast by one person was 44. The accused is identified as Muhammad Arif Saller, who had cast these votes at the polling station No 54 of the Sindh Assembly constituency PS-114, where Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Irfanullah Khan Marwat was declared the winner.
In another National Assembly constituency, NA-258, where PML-N’s Hakeem Khan Baloch won the elections, Muhammad Sohaim had polled eight votes at the polling station No 229.
Of more than 398 post-election petitions filed with the tribunals, the majority had been received from Punjab.
However, so far, only one case had been sent to Nadra by a tribunal from Punjab for thumb impression verification. This case is about NA 118 Lahore from where the PML-N’s Muhammad Riaz Mailk won against PTI’s Hamid Zaman. No case had been forwarded for thumb impression verification from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 27th, 2013.
COMMENTS (29)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
It will be useless to play drama of local body elections in this country. Corrupt, dishonest and gangsters hail democracy in this country because it is the ideology that suits their interests. Elections and polling are the backyard doors that let in these criminals come to power. They don't have to go to universities for education, they don't have to take tests and exams, they don't have to learn right from wrong, from their same corrupt parents, yet they easily come to rule or guide the nation in their ways.
@Aysha M: why dont the property owner come back to his property
@imran ali: yeah why dont u try once more for jinnah pur
@Mirza: @TrueKarachiwala: I have been regularly commenting on ET for the past 2 years. After the elections I have been bombarded by comments at personal level and my ID taken up 3 times. ET is not a tabloid but one of the leading newspapers of our country, if there is no mechanism in place to discourage such behaviour, I would rather not be at such a place.
Here is my Analysis of NADRA Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) system. http://defenderofhope.blogspot.com/2013/10/NA256.html
None other than MUTAHIDA QATIL MOVEMENT We now have our hopes on OBESITY to save karachi
@Aysha M: "Karachi is MQM property ?" Is this what Altaf bhai tells you in his telephonic lectures?
@Ghostrider: Altaf Bhai's mafia is mainly based in Karachi, India and London thats why
PUNISH THEM right away !!! no use of findings if they are not punished !!!
The most shameful rigging was done in KP where Taliban threatened certain parties and their voters to stay away from election. and forced people to vote for PTI.
Please highlight such people on Media ...
This is how the "heavy mandate" is made! NADRA should have published the pictures of these voting machines from their ID cards! so people can appreciate them. They should have been arrested before making their names public!
So much for free and fair elections. ECP, like most of our "institutions" turned out to be useless. And then we wonder why the army takes over when it does!
@Ghostrider: Rigging is investigated after a candidate files an appeal against the result. The article mentions 398 petitions. Surely not all of them are from Karachi. So you, with your flawed ethnocentric logic and misplaced sense of outrage can take a hike.
Karachi will have its revenge.
This report clearly shows that a voter cast multiple votes also in constituencies other than won by the MQM. So we are not the only black sheep.
so now what? Will there be re-polling? elections? any punishment for the culprits? No use of such findings if youre not going to punish the culprits.
it seems Karachi is not part of Pakistan....NADRA only targeting Karachi.....What about Punjab and KP...as if most fair election was held there....
No one will be taken to task, a futile exercise going by history.
Are we going to issue non bail able warrants for these who are caught red handed? Stealing elections is worst crime against constitution and should be severely punished otherwise our corrupt traditions would continue and we would blame the ruler not ourselves. These people's photos be published and they must be maligned in public.
rigging..what rigging....i didnt see anything...(afraid to be killed by na maloom afraad)!!
why is that only karachi elections are investigated...what about rigging in rural areas of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. What about rigging in Lahore. Why this discrimination???