Over 40,000 thumbprints unverified in PP-147: Nadra report

E-Paper | April 25, 2026

LAHORE: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) disclosed on Monday that 40,155 votes polled in the constituency of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Mohsin Latif — a nephew of Kulsoom Nawaz — have not been processed due to "poor quality of fingerprints".

A report submitted to an election tribunal in Lahore by Nadra pinpointed various irregularities and casting of bogus votes in PP-147 constituency.

According to the report, of the total of 74,251 votes, the fingerprints on only 24,139 votes' counterfoils matched with fingerprints in Nadra's Citizen Database Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).

A further 1,084 used counterfoils had invalid Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) numbers which had never been issued by Nadra.

The report revealed 134 voters who were not registered in the PP-147 constituency had also cast votes, while 46 votes failed authentication because someone else had voted against the CNIC number on the used counterfoil.

Mistakes in writing down the CNIC numbers of 737 used counterfoils prevented them from being checked against the Nadra database, and 1,862 used counterfoils were found with illegible CNIC numbers.

There are 111 polling stations in PP-147, which falls under the NA-122 constituency. The provincial assembly constituency is one of four National Assembly constituencies where the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had been demanding votes’ and thumb verification since the election results were announced. PTI candidate Shoaib Siddiqui had lost to Mohsin Latif in PP-147 during the May 2013 election.

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Imran Gabol is a Lahore-based reporter for Dawn with over a decade of experience in journalism. He covers politics, climate change, human rights, education, and metropolitan affairs. He can be found on X at @gabolizm.

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Khurram

May 25, 2015 05:55pm

Only points to the in-competencies of polling staff nothing else. It should serve as base line for next election to provide appropriate training for polling staff

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Awais Ali

May 25, 2015 06:03pm

Now I would say this govt is floating on Fake mandate.

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Factual

May 25, 2015 06:12pm

Appalling! Brings a huge question mark on the legitimacy of our electoral process.

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imran

May 25, 2015 06:28pm

2015 will be an election year.

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O Really

May 25, 2015 06:37pm

Conducting elections is merely a process. Once set it is very mundane and simple. The amount of mistakes and consequent arguments simply means...Some people don't want this process to run in the correct manner. All these disageements and disappointments are sad and unnecessary.

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Talha

May 25, 2015 06:54pm

Now PTI and its supporters would as usual twist facts and present it as rigging 40,000 votes had bad thumb impression so what? They had real CNICs on them If thumb is not verifiable then CNIC is checked and after checking that these 40,000 votes are real Logically how even is it possible that 40K peoples ID cards have been used to caste votes

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Haider Rehman

May 25, 2015 07:00pm

Biometric System will solve a lot of things. If KP govt can do it for schools and hospitals, why can't ECP?

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Anarchist

May 25, 2015 07:11pm

@Khurram And these 'in-competencies' occurred on their own, without benefiting any one? What incentives did ROs have to indulge in such 'in-competencies'? Behind every crime, there is a motive. ROs did not it for jinns or did they?

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Aamir

May 25, 2015 07:12pm

With such rigging / irregularities/ mistakes/ oversight whatever u may term it, How can anyone on God's earth claims a mandate of being people's representative?

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Em Moosa

May 25, 2015 07:17pm

Nation is tired of this JIT, judicial commission etc. Please stop this and dissolve the governments in Islamabad and in provinces. There should be re elections after resolving all the issues. It will take years but we should go for it. Pakistan is first and not these ruling parties who are proved correct to the core.

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Larka

May 25, 2015 07:22pm

Is this Headline?? I am sure, same will the case for every constituency including those in KPK. Every body by now know that, Magnetic ink used is not of good quality, Staff was not 100% trained,NICs before 2005 does not have ability to read the thumb , Paper is of low quality, Thumb was not put in correct way. the only solution is biometric & I am sure that will certainly reduced the voting percentage as most of illeterare dont know the usage of biometric, this will required massive training exercise with heavy budget.

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Shaukat Ali

May 25, 2015 07:24pm

Nothing new; worst happened during SIM verification where most had to go to NADRA for re-verification of finger prints despite being physically present.

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Akib

May 25, 2015 07:27pm

@Awais Ali poor quality of fingerprints has nothing to do with mandate. Just incompetency of the staff. PTI never had the people's mandate. They just make noise

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Viqar Khilji

May 25, 2015 07:32pm

"A further 1,084 used counterfoils had invalid Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) numbers which had never been issued by Nadra." Can someone please explain how 1084 votes came to be cast using ID Card numbers that were never issued by NADRA? Is not the ID Card number of each voter crossmatched with the ID Card numbers present on the lists of voters present with the Polling Staff?

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Shaukat Ali

May 25, 2015 07:34pm

@Haider Rehman Need to learn from SIM verification.

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Shaukat Ali

May 25, 2015 07:35pm

@imran No bar on dreams, but country can't afford frequent elections.

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Shafique

May 25, 2015 07:50pm

Amazing! Thank you IK for persistently fighting to expose Election frauds

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Gaz

May 25, 2015 07:59pm

@Shaukat Ali so the country cannot afford to have frequent elections but can afford to have a useless incompetent government that ran the country into the ground in 1999 and will do the same this time.

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Loimashar

May 25, 2015 08:22pm

Is their anything being done to use biometric system rather than magnetic ink or other things for the next elections ? This system was used for validating the telephone sims and worked fine. India used it in their general elections , having 7 to 8 times our population.

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MJK

May 25, 2015 08:55pm

@Shaukat Ali - can't afford frequent elections ? so you are legitimizing a bogus, rigged election. Whatever happened to true representation ?

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AXH

May 25, 2015 09:23pm

@Shaukat Ali - Actually, it is the other way round. The country can't afford fake elections repeatedly where two fake rivals take their turns in the name of democracy.

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Khaliq

May 25, 2015 09:23pm

This proves again and agin that this system of finger print matching is not perfect, that does not mean whole election is bogus , For next election go for Bio Metric verification and Nadra needs to update its system as well

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Owais Mangal

May 25, 2015 09:27pm

@Awais Ali Indeed.

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Hasnain Haque

May 25, 2015 09:33pm

I suppose PMLN supporters would ssy, its a simple mistake.

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Riazullah

May 25, 2015 09:51pm

haha - I am sure Pakistani are convinced that that it was fair and flare election

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sid

May 25, 2015 09:51pm

Clearly there are massive irregularities yet we have apologists who say don't do anything as it will disrupt "democracy". The true essence of democracy is to hold people account yet the Pakistani politicians fail to see this. There is clearly someone responsible for co-ordinating this massive rigging and that person(s) must be punished severely including all those that "aided and abetted".

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sid

May 25, 2015 09:54pm

@Khurram You can't just blame the polling staff. I would understand that, if these incidents were isolated and the benefactors were from various parties. The truth is these incidents are widespread and there are certain parties which benefitted the most. Someone(s) is clearly behind all this rigging.

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Khwaja

May 25, 2015 10:03pm

Big Picture always comes with single tiny shot.

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Kamran

May 25, 2015 10:46pm

It is a crime not just an irregularity...Who is the ultimate beneficiary?...Pakistan can never progress unless we get rid of money launderers and corrupt politicians.

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Mohammad Farooq

May 25, 2015 10:52pm

@Khurram Well this is what Imran khan had been asking for 2 years. I'm flabbergasted why PML-N opted to get stay orders from courts?

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Mohammad Farooq

May 25, 2015 10:58pm

@Shaukat Ali Country can't afford free and fair election? However, we can afford these corrupt politicians continue to rob this country. This is an oxymoron.

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siddiqullah

May 26, 2015 12:02am

why did every irregularity in previous election go into the favor of N league....there is more to it beyond the curtain.

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Shaukat Ali

May 26, 2015 12:08am

@Kamran IK is one of them, Sir.

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Shaukat Ali

May 26, 2015 12:16am

@Riazullah Thumbprint verification is no criteria to judge whether elections were fair or not. If thumbprints could not be verified during SIM verification process in the presence of the individuals, how could it be done in their absence? The system is not yet geared up to follow biometric approach and non verification of thumbprints doesn't mean the votes were bogus as proven during SIM verification process. My own thumb impressions didn't match despite having smart card.

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Fazal Karim

May 26, 2015 12:27am

If thumb impressions can not be verified credit ability of elections is lost. Best course will be reelections after one year which should announce immediately. In one years time Nadra should fiend solution to finger printing.

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Laksh

May 26, 2015 01:46am

Very interesting pattern, only about 30 - 40% of votes are turning out to be verifiable as a pattern in different constituencies. Difficult to believe that NADRA's modern technology is not able to read 60% of the thumb impressions unless these are imprinted by 'rubber thumbs'. 60% unverifiable thumb prints cannot be labelled as incompetence, it points more to intentional misdeeds which are folding out real. Not surprised,really!

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Mian Kashif Mumtaz

May 26, 2015 01:58am

Another example of nepotism.

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Razi

May 26, 2015 04:36am

Does that mean that thieves are ruling our country?

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AYZA

May 26, 2015 04:40am

This says it all, "poor quality of fingerprints" AKA fraud voter ballots. Why are we not surprised that Imran Khan and PTI have been right all along to pursue this sham election which most educated Pakistanis know that PML-N's "victory" was undoubtedly supported by outside forces and not by the majority of Pakistani voters - who in mass numbers voted for IK and PTI!

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Tupac

May 26, 2015 06:14am

"According to the report, of the total of 74,251 votes, the fingerprints on only 24,139 votes' counterfoils matched with fingerprints in Nadra's Citizen Database Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)." -- Dawn Then re-count only the valid 24,139 votes and declare the winner.

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YOUSUF HUSSAIN

May 26, 2015 10:07am

to eliminates all fraud use bio-metric system of voting ,but agencies and party that believe on fraud will not allow to use this system.

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Truth

May 26, 2015 11:42am

@Haider Rehman Yse of biometric verification of voters looks to be the best option under the circumstances.

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Shaukat Ali

May 26, 2015 01:17pm

@Gaz Sorry Sir, you need to read history again, it was Musharraf regime which derailed democracy. No other party has done better than PML(N) for development, except false slogans. PTI's government in KPK had proven its incompetence already and IK has proven he is no saint either.

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Shaukat Ali

May 26, 2015 01:20pm

@YOUSUF HUSSAIN Your country is not geared up to use biometric system; its use will lead to disqualification of the majority of voters.

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