Parliamentary panel indecisive on electronic voting machines

ISLAMABAD: The parliamentary committee on electoral reforms will meet next month to take a decision on the use of electronic voting machines in future elections.

On Monday, election authorities again gave a demonstration of different types of voting machines to the sub-committee of parliamentary committee on electoral reforms.

However, the committee members were not satisfied with the machines prepared by different vendors.

Zahid Hamid, who heads the sub-committee, later told reporters that the committee will take a final decision next month to use electronic voting machines or drop the idea altogether. He said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has been asked to submit its final report by November 2, elaborating details of voting machines available in the market.

The committee has also decided to test the option of postal balloting by overseas Pakistanis in one of the up-coming by-elections as a pilot project. After accessing the results of  the pilot project, the committee would recommend including the provision in the law, whereby Pakistanis living abroad could be allowed to exercise their right to vote through postal ballots.

Many countries, including neighbouring India have been successfully using EVMs for decades. EVMs are being used in 20 countries, with six of these countries still piloting the technology. Globally, very different trends are seen in different regions. Europe and North America can be seen as moving away from the use of EVMs, while South America and Asia show increasing interest in using electronic voting technologies.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2015.