KARACHI: EC to register ‘missing voters’ from 17th
By Habib Khan Ghori
KARACHI, Aug 14: Following a Supreme Court directive, the Election Commission has chalked out a plan to enlist the eligible voters who could not find their names in the electoral rolls. The EC has undertaken to complete the exercise within a month, it is reliably learnt.
According to the plan, more than 30,000 enumerators would visit door-to-door in Sindh from Aug 17 to revise the rolls by including the missing names. An eligible voter claiming to have been left out would have to produce his/her CNIC or some authentic document proving his age, sources told Dawn.
The sources recalled that the same number of enumerators had originally been hired for the job and the enumeration process was supervised by 27 returning officers and 600 assistant returning officers.
The aim of getting the revision and correction done by the same people was to complete the work as quickly as possible as they were well versed with the process and fully acquainted with the areas and localities, the sources said.
There are about six million households to be covered within 15 days so that time could be spared for displaying the revised electoral rolls in the next week before their finalisation.
The electoral rolls prepared earlier on the basis of the CNIC data show the total number of eligible voters in the province as 11,327,485 as against 16,423,653 shown on the 2002 electoral rolls, indicating a difference of 5,096,168 on the lower side.
Meanwhile, the screen meant for fixing partition in the polling booths for the purpose of secrecy during vote casting has started landing at the port.
Out of 100 containers carrying the cargo, more than 30 have already arrived at the port and the remaining containers are expected to follow. The process is likely to be completed by the end of the next month or mid-October.
For the first time, the EC would use transparent ballot boxes, consignments of which are likely to land at the Karachi port in 200 containers soon.
According to the sources, the screen partition and transparent ballot boxes have been arranged in collaboration with the UNDP and USAID.
