ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has abolished the option of more than two addresses of voters other than those mentioned on their Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) in an attempt to check fake votes, according to a senior official.

However, voters can change their address anytime by following set procedure of the commission.

The social media was inundated with complaints last week that the ECP had changed the voter registration data of several citizens without informing them, with most claiming that their polling stations had been moved by the election watchdog to inconvenient locations much farther than their previous allocations.

The complaints, which also included some by those who claimed their votes had been cancelled by the commission after it wrongly registered them as having died, started pouring in after the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) asked citizens to confirm their voter registration information with the ECP by messaging their CNIC numbers to 8300.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ECP denied making any changes to voter registration data. It said there was “no truth” to any such reports. It advised the citizens who were facing an inconvenience to immediately reach out to the ECP with necessary documents to get their complaints resolved.

When contacted, a senior ECP official told Dawn the electoral watchdog was following the election rules amended in 2017 and asked voters to get their addresses changed until Jan 31, 2018, otherwise the permanent address on their CINCs would be mentioned in the voter list.

The official said that before 2017, voters had an option to get their address changed other than the two mentioned in their CNICs (permanent and temporary).

“Before 2017, voters could show their more than two addresses based on their businesses, properties and land ownership,” he added.

However, in a series of 126 meetings held in 2013 on election reforms, the ECP decided that only two addresses of the voters would be considered which were already mentioned in their CNICs.

The official said the ECP had kicked off a countrywide exercise from April 21 this year, which would continue until June 19, in which voter lists along with their addresses had been displayed at more than 20,000 centres. These centres could be located through ECP’s 8300 SMS service.

He said the voters whose addresses on their votes had been changed according to their permanent addresses mentioned in CNIC could go to their display centre where staff of the ECP would help them in changing the address they wanted.

The official said the facility to change addresses would continue until June 19. After that, voters would have to go to ECP offices in their relevant districts.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2022