ISLAMABAD: As voters in the federal capital go to the polls to elect local government representatives in what will effectively be the first-ever elections at the grassroots-level, the conduct of these elections will depend heavily on the capacity of election staff.

Even though local body elections haven’t been held here since 1979, people’s familiarity with the procedure of the general elections means that most people understand the basic processes involved. But very few know what their ballot papers will look like or how many candidates they will have to vote for in each ward.

Muddasir Rizvi, who leads the election observer group Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), told Dawn that according to the rules, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should have conducted mock exercises to build voter capacity and, more importantly, ascertain the average amount of time it would take an individual to cast a vote.

“To the best of my knowledge, this was not done. But given the kind of arrangements that the ECP claims to have in place, it shouldn’t take each voter more than four to five minutes to cast their vote,” he said.

ECP failed to hold mock electoral exercise to acquaint citizens with polling processes

Mr Rizvi, who is a seasoned election observer, explained that there would be six presiding officers, who will each issue one ballot paper.

They will make multiple entries on each ballot paper and its counter foil. Each voter will cast six ballot papers, and each ballot requires the presiding officer to record voters’ name, CNIC No., signature, thumb impression. In addition, they will have to sign and stamp both ballot and counterfoil. This means that there are at least nine data points per ballot paper.

The process for each voter requires officers to make around 50 entries on separate ballot papers and counterfoils.

“On the face of it, this looks like a good system. But in order to ensure the process runs smoothly, discipline will be required both inside and outside polling stations. If the queue is not managed properly and presiding officers are not provided separate tables, a KP-like situation is quite possible,” he said.

He was referring to the confusion regarding ballot papers in KP, where presiding officers issuing around seven different ballot papers were made to sit around one table, which resulted in lots of chaos.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2015