ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has dropped a plan for trial of biometric verification of voters in the coming by-polls for a Punjab assembly seat in Gujranwala after a disclosure that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) lacks the capacity to do it.

Sources told Dawn that the ECP, which had declared its intention to introduce the biometric verification system in the next general elections, had conceived a plan to run a pilot project for the by-elections in PP-100 (Gujranwala) scheduled for July 26.

The idea had been floated by an ECP committee headed by its director general for administration, which was of the view that the online verification system of Nadra should be tried on a small scale in a by-poll.

Under the plan, Nadra machines were to be deployed at all polling stations of the constituency to verify the thumbprints of all the voters before issuance of ballot papers to them through the online system.

In a recent meeting held at the ECP, a technical team of Nadra was told that the number of voters in the constituency was 170,000 and their verification would be required in nine hours. The Nadra team candidly explained that it was not possible because it had the capacity to verify 60,000 to 70,000 thumbprints in 24 hours.

When ECP officials asked what would happen if the verification was required in a National Assembly constituency where the number of voters could be around half a million, the Nadra team said the authority was basically a registration authority and its infrastructure had been developed for issuance of computerised national identity cards and not for use in elections.

An earlier plan for storage of polling station-wise data of voters for authentication had also been rejected by Nadra which said it would mean a compromise on security of the data.

The idea of introduction of electronic voting machines and a biometric verification system to make the electoral process more transparent was also discussed during recent meetings of a sub-committee of the parliamentary panel on electoral reforms.

Replying to a question, an ECP official said one option was to ask Nadra to enhance its capacity.

Published in Dawn June 20th, 2015

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