ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The Election Commission has asked people who have attained the age of 18 years on or before Jan 1 to enrol themselves as voters in the computerised electoral rolls being prepared afresh for the forthcoming general election and future local government elections.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, Election Commission secretary Kunwar Mohammad Dilshad explained that during the recent enumeration process, the enumerating staff had not registered those who had turned 18 after Jan 1, 2006, till Dec 31, 2006, because they were not eligible to be enrolled then.

However, he said, the decision to enrol new voters would be welcomed because all eligible people would be able to vote in the coming election.

Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq will soon appoint revising authorities to entertain claims of fresh applicants and enrol them as voters.

The new voters, however, have been told to get their Computerised National Identity Cards on time. The draft electoral rolls will be published in May.

For publication of the draft electoral rolls, display centres will be established all over the country to enable the general public to inspect the rolls and ensure that their names appeared correctly in the relevant electoral areas.

Prescribed application forms for filing claims and objections and applications for corrections will be made available free of cost in offices of revising authorities, registration officers and assistant registration officers and also at display centres.

The EC secretary also clarified that enrolment as a voter in the electoral rolls was

a continuous process and any person whose name was not registered as voter could apply to the registration officer concerned for inclusion of his name even after final publication of the rolls till the schedule for the general election was announced.