ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja has said that a survey to identify reasons behind a huge gender gap among voters is near completion.

Speaking at a ceremony held here to mark the National Voters’ Day, he said the survey had been launched in 21 tehsils across the country to ascertain reasons behind the gap between male and male voters and to effectively address the problem.

He said the Election Com­mission of Pakistan (ECP) had started working to make major improvements in election operation under the strategic plan 2019-23.

The CEC said that under the plan new eligible voters were being registered while steps were being taken to introduce new technology in the election process.

He said that the commission had made sincere efforts for registration of those eligible voters in various areas of the country who were not registered with the ECP earlier. Because of such measures taken by the ECP to register all eligible voters, the number of registered voters had now increased from 112 million to 115m in the country.

He said that the ECP had also introduced an online complaint management system to receive complaints from citizens and immediately give relief to complainants. The purpose of organising events on the National Voters’ Day is to encourage the people to take part in democratic process. He said measures were being taken to make the electoral process transparent and fair.

The CEC said the ECP was a self-governing institution and it provided equal prospects of the right to vote to all citizens. The ECP has made all arrangements to hold local government elections, he said, adding that conducting the local government elections on time was a constitutional responsibility of the ECP.

In this context, he said, the ECP was in constant contact with the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) in view of the Covid-19 situation.

He referred to the ECP’s decision to defer all by-elections till Jan 31 on the recommendation of the NCOC. The commission arranged various activities on the National Voters’ Day every year to inform the public about their democratic rights and national responsibility.

Meanwhile, District Elec­tion Commissioner Naeem Ahmad, while addressing a separate event, highlighted the importance of the vote and urged all citizens of the country to get themselves enrolled as voters and wisely use their right for a meaningful democratic process.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2020