ISLAMABAD: The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) — a coalition of over 50 leading civil society organisations — will deploy 19,000 observers across 272 National Assembly constituencies to monitor voting and counting processes at 85 per cent of the total polling stations to be set up by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for the July 25 elections.

According to a press release issued on Sunday, Fafen will deploy 9,884 observers in Punjab, 4,225 in Sindh, 3,549 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (including tribal districts), 1,117 in Balochistan and 225 in Islamabad Capital Territory.

Fafen’s accredited, non-partisan and trained observers will observe the election day environment outside polling stations, incidents of electoral and political violence, if any, pre-polling preparations at polling stations, voting, vote counting and ECP forms-filling processes and barriers to women voting.

Fafen observers will be trained to gather required data and documents from assigned polling stations to enable the network to conduct parallel vote tabulations (PVTs) in up to 272 National Assembly constituencies. The PVTs will provide a comparison of a statistically-valid sample of polling stations’ vote-tallies gathered by the observers against official copies of the election forms.

Fafen will also observe vote consolidation process at the offices of returning officers through 272 consistency coordinators. Based on its observation, it will release its preliminary report on July 27.

Fafen has already been observing the pre-election phase through 272 constituency coordinators and 130 district coordinators to provide an assessment of political environment and implementation of election-related laws, rules and regulations since January. The purpose of this observation is to contribute to the evolution of an election process that is free, fair, transparent, accountable and in accordance with the requirements laid out in the Elections Act 2017.

Based on its observation, Fafen has produced periodic updates, information briefs and reports in an effort to provide objective, unbiased and evidence-based information about the quality of electoral and political processes to the ECP, political parties, media, civil society organisations and the citizens.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2018