Express News screengrab of Additional Secretary Election Commission Pakistan Sher Afgan.
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said that rigging did not take place in the NA-68 constituency during the May 11 general elections last year and declared the discrepancy in the voter count to be a typing error, Express News reported.
While speaking to the media, Additional Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan Sher Afgan has said that typing errors made by returning officers are not uncommon.
"In previous elections there have also been typing errors, which the election commission fixed immediately, after which the contestant who is in the lead is notified," the additional secretary added.
He said it became necessary to look into the count due to the allegations of rigging.
The election commission had ordered an inquiry be made into the polling station 262, which then revealed that there were 1,537 registered voters out of which 779 voted for Nawaz Sharif.
However, because of a typing error, the result had been written as 7,889, Express News reported.
Afgan also stated that the seat had been declared as empty immediately after the elections and was included in the by-election. The results from the by-election did not show any anomaly.
ECP had said that no further action will be taken regarding this matter and that the documents will be made public soon.
Due to the considerable difference viewed in the numbers given by the presiding officer and the returning officer, the election commission had decided to hold a meeting tomorrow to verify whether this was a typing error or if rigging actually took place.
COMMENTS (47)
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I think it is easy to type 779 as compare to 7879...
PTI is busy in accusing and blame game. They will not be able to even 10 seats in next elections. They are least concerned about KPK. Their only objective is to damage the economy and stock exchange through creating political instability in the country. Their priority is PTI, not Pakistan. Biggest shame for PTI.
I think the whole election result was indeed one big typing error.................who needs voters and votes if election results are to base on typing errors in 21st century
Thats just one "typo" at only one polling station of one constituency! they way he was defending this typo was political instead of admitting the mistake with shame and never mentioned how on earth these officers accept figures more than electoral figures? He has also not told was this typo one off across this constituency! Its also astonishing the typo when these lists are hand written! Its like more of pressure from the Sharifs to stop this checking and investigations.
Has PTI done anything positive in KPK? Why is he wasting the time of nation in non-issues? There should a limit of Dheet Pun.
@Bajee I feel pity for you people who dont use their mind and madly following an immature and U-Turn person. I am not supporter of PM but I am opponent of dirty politics of Imran. It is the greatest blessing of Allah that such person is not PM of pakistan. Criticism is the easiest thing to do in world and PTI is doing the same. Allah bless Pakistan.
@Dawood Suleman:
Wow another supporter of typo PM. PTI should be appreciated as it has brought into limelight the issue of rigging and how the ruling party is now covering up its mistakes by calling them "typing mistake." Why is it that such typing mistake has occurred in a constituency from when our PM has been elected? Care to answer?
PTI doing criticism for the sake of criticism. Insha Allah they will lose next election as well.
I think if PTI wins 341 seats out of total 342, they will say that they lost one seat due to rigging. This is PTI's politics. They are always busy in accusing, abusing and blaming others. Shame for PTI.
If PTI Wins: No Rigging. If PTI Loses: Rigging. Dirty politics of PTI. I am seeing a downfall of PTI. Air is leaking from the balloon of PTI. This air was filled by Establishment.
The only thing i have to say in response to this is.........."lolzzzzz"........... face palm
What an incompetent Election Commission we have. It took them a year to sort out a typing error on PM's seat. God knows how many more typing errors they have made!!
@unbelievable:
Apparently as far as the totalling oes the corect number i.e. 779 was used. That being the case, what other motive could there be o report an incorrect number, get beaten up for cheating and yet not having in any way benefited from that inaccuracy?
Had the totalling included the 7889 number, i would have been cynical about passing this as a typing error. But that seems o not have been the case.
I knew it had to be something silly like this. If someone is going to rig an election they will not leave such an obvious discrepancy hanging out for all to see. Give PML-N some credit, there are much more subtle and sophisticated ways to steal an election and I am sure they know them all. Frankly, the more Imran Khan and his supporters harped on this particular discrepancy, the more it became obvious that these people were grasping at straws.
Nevertheless, I think the nation needs to go to a computerized voting system. It should not be too hard to come up with software so that a person goes into the voting booth, presses his thumb on a scanner to verify identity, and is presented with his ballot on the screen. After he or she makes his choices, a hard copy of the thumbprint along with the completed ballot can be saved for auditing purposes, but all tallies will be computer generated and human typing errors will be eliminated.
If this is a bit too sophisticated and science fiction like, then a simpler optical scanner system would still be better than hand counting. The voters mark their ballot using permanent ink. After the polls close, the ballots are fed through a scanner and the tallies instantly generated. Pretty much eliminates any chance of hanky panky with the counting. And the ballot is a permanent record available for auditing purposes.
And unfortunately they are not opening rest of the polling station, same goes for majority of constituencies. When they can’t verify thumb prints they say they didn’t use magnetic ink, when they started to verify thumb prints they dismissed NADRA chairman & then stalled tribunal inquiries via Govt pressure. People already say they miss PP era after their poor performance. This is no democracy, this is rule of families limited company, courtesy grand rigging.
What inefficient typist the Election Commission has? I have been typing since 50 years, 35 years for a university in Saudi Arabia. If a typist makes one error, then that error is repeated thousands of times while printing. Smells of foul play. (Its like printing a counterfeit currency with the wrong denomination and no one notices it for a year).
7889 instead of 779, thats some Typo. They will go to their graves defending corruption.
@rasheed
Dear, did your ECP even bother to check any other polling station... Answer is NO!. So pls make a statement that you can substantiate - no need for hypotheticals...
Puts a damper on trolls and their dimwit leader. Move and try to pick on another issue.
When you type 789 vs 779 - that's a typo. When you type 7889 vs 779 that's voter fraud. Also - where's the oversight/double checking of work? You telling me that all the effort involved in voting comes down to typo's?
So Nawaz Sharif is our TYPO PM.
How sick.
Anyone who gives or accepts an argument like this should resign immediately!!
1500 Votes in this Polling Station 246.PML N bagged 779 votes from this polling station and this result was handed out to presiding officer who gives copy of this to PTI and PML N respective polling agent.While compiling total results at Constituency level mis typing lead to 7879 rather then 779 BUT THIS DIDNT EFFECT the over all tally of votes as these votes were counted as 779 but WRITTEN AS 7879. Now the interesting thing is that PTI candidate must be knowing the un official result and that the vote count tallies between un official and official result they just picked a typing error to claim that whole election is rigged.LAME!!!!!!
then punish the presiding officer for not checking it. typing error is that instead of one number, you write a different number eg 7790, 979, 799 - not this one
How many such "typing errors" are buried in results across the country?
@Asif Khan: You understood me wrong bro. I was laughing about what a joke this election commission has become. It arranged a rigged election and now say it was a a typing mistake. They should be punished
Catching N in rigging is like catching fish in water, if you close one door they will open other hundred.
@rasheed: And unfortunately they are not opening rest of the polling station, same goes for majority of constituencies. When they can't verify thumb prints they say they didn't use magnetic ink, when they started to verify thumb prints they dismissed NADRA chairman & then stalled tribunal inquiries via Govt pressure. People already say they miss Musharafs Govt after seeing PPP era & now we're seeing this one. This is no democracy, this is rule of families limited company, courtesy grand rigging.
This is an illegitimate government. Pure and simple.
@rasheed: who is to say there were no other "typing errors" in the other 499 polling stations? shame!!
Yup. Typing errors they all were. Be it Sargodha, Rawalpindi or Sialkot. How mightily feasible.
There are typically 500 polling stations in each constituency with each polling station having around 1,500 registered votes.
There was a typing error in just 1 polling station out of 500, which could have impacted on 0.2% results only. If there was any intentional rigging, then we would see the same on at least 10-20 stations to have major impact.
Thanks God Luckily he didn't wrote 78890. Nothing matters when you don't have any shame!!!
Even though this is just a cover up but i bet most liberals here would just go like, "We told you that the elections were fair and free...". And eventually people's struggle for fair and free elections and a transparent electoral system would start fading in to oblivion.
Lolz ................typing mistake
@Hamza: Is ECP trying to fool the public? What a stupid excuse. It can never be a typing mistake, how did the typist typed digit number 8 twice? If we believe actual count was 779, firstly its a 3 digit (not 4) and then digit # 8 pressing twice as a mistake??????? Nobody would buy that logic.
I can't stop laughing at this one.
See no evil, hear no evil - Fair & Lovely elections
A 'typing error' resulted in a of 7110 votes...:)
We got a new name for 'rigging' ..... now it's called 'typing error'. bhar mein gaye jamhoriat!
I took more than year to understand that it was typing error??? alas !!
Reeks of corruption. Are the votes verified? Do they corroborate with Nadra's fingerprint database? Gimmicks.
good work move forward
As far as i remember, the white paper that pointed out this discrepancy was published several months ago.... Why has it taken the threat of collapse of the govt to get the ECP to clarify a typo?
Gimme a break !! If the candidate would have been any other "majja gamma" - i could understand that the typist made an error - but if the candidate is the head of the party and possibly the future PM of the country - i guess the typist would have checked the typed page ten times before finalizing it !!!
typing mistake. hahahahahahhaha