ISLAMABAD: The ability of the National Database and Registration Authority to verify voters’ thumb impression will not be affected by the use of ordinary or magnetised ink on the electoral roll, Nadra Chairman Usman Mobeen told the poll inquiry commission on Thursday.

Appearing as a witness before the commission, he said the fingerprints on a ballot paper’s counterfoil or the electoral roll of insufficient quality did not mean that it was an invalid vote.

Mr Mobeen, who joined Nadra as chief technical officer in 2002 and became its head on Feb 6 this year, admitted that the authority did not have the ability or equipment to check whether the ink used in the election process was ordinary or magnetised because it did not own a magnetised ink scanner.

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Over 97 per cent of match rate conducted to verify thumb impressions in such cases was found to be valid, he said when cross-examined by senior counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, representing the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Advocate Shahid Hamid of the PML-N and Salman Akram Raja of the Election Commission of Pakistan also put questions to him.

Mr Mobeen explained that when the thumb impression was not readable by the machine because of its bad quality, the verification was done by checking the computerised national identity card number, which was also recorded in the counterfoil of the ballot paper and in 100pc cases it was found to be valid.

He conceded that thumb impressions were verified by Nadra through the automatic system for which the thumb impression or the sample should be of good quality, but it would be wrong to assume that the impressions which the authority failed to verify were invalid votes.

The Nadra chief, however, acknowledged that the thumb impression of every voter was available on the voters’ list and affixed on the counterfoil.

He also admitted that he has never expressed reservations about a report the authority had prepared on the verification of thumb impressions in NA-122 where National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq defeated PTI chief Imran Khan.

He said the reading of the thumb impression whether on the counterfoil or the electoral roll or both depended on the direction issued by the ECP. Sometimes fingerprints were not picked up by the Nadra’s automatic finger identification system (Afis) from the counterfoil if the thumb was not clean or “henna’ had been applied on it, or it was slightly cut or became blank with age or not applied properly on the ballot paper, he added.

Nadra has submitted 38 of 39 reports it has prepared on verification of thumb impressions and earlier furnished before different tribunals.

In terms of the use of magnetised ink, the first reference to Nadra came from the ECP and on four occasions, he said, samples were sent by the ECP, but nothing was formally “agreed between us then”.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2015

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