ISLAMABAD: Amidst a hue and cry over inaccuracy of preliminary elector rolls, the Election Commission of Pakistan has approached the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) seeking its help to use digital and technological tools to rectify human errors in voters’ lists, sources in the ECP told Dawn.

The development comes following the disclosure about dozens of alive voters, including a lawmaker shown as dead during the recently conducted door-to-door verification of voters and identification of over four million entries of dead individuals in the voters’ lists.

Speaking at a press conference, ECP secretary Omar Hamid Khan and special secretary Zafar Iqbal Hussain said the preparation of error-free and credible electoral rolls was an important step towards free, fair and transparent elections.

The ECP secretary said around 150 out-of-area voters from Sindh, including an MPA, had been reported deceased during the verification exercise, but added that the mistake now stood corrected.

Asked as to what was being done to minimise human error, Mr Khan said: “We have taken departmental action to rectify the mistakes.”

Commenting on the voice being raised over flaws in the electoral rolls, he conceded there were mistakes in them, but said voters’ cooperation was required to make the lists error-free. He said that during the door-to-door verification carried out from Nov 7 to Dec 31, 2021, 98.4 million voters could be verified at their permanent or temporary addresses, while four million dead on the electoral rolls were detected.

Perhaps this was the reason the total number of voters shared with the media on Monday was 120.48m as against 124.75m according to May 17 data posted on ECP’s official website.

The ECP secretary said a little less than a million people, who could not be verified even after another verification campaign launched in March this year, had been enrolled at their permanent addresses, to ensure they were not disenfranchised.

It was explained that under Section 27 of the Elections Act 2017, the voters could only be registered at their permanent or temporary addresses mentioned on their computerised national identity cards (CNICs).

Some of the complaints about enrolment of members of a family in different constituencies, the press conference was told, had been examined and it was found that one of the members after moving to some other area had opted to get registered at the place he had moved.

The ECP secretary said the preliminary electoral rolls had been placed at 20,159 display centres across the country from May 21 to June 19 for public inspection. He said the final electoral rolls would be published on Aug 12 after amendments.

Mr Khan said there could be mistakes in the electoral rolls, which could only be corrected with the help of the voters concerned. He advised the people to visit display centres and get information about their vote through 8300 SMS service.

He regretted that some political circles were creating doubts about changes in electoral rolls in 20 constituencies of Punjab Assembly where by-elections are to take place on July 17. He said the elections in these constituencies fell vacant after de-seating of PTI dissidents over defection.

Answering a question, he said the ECP was a constitutional body and not a political institution, adding that the commission would continue to discharge its duties in accordance with the Constitution and law.

About electronic voting machines, Mr Khan said work on new technologies would continue regardless of which political party was in power. He said multiple pilots would be carried out before using the machines in polls, adding that “many protocols have to be followed and many safeguards have to be passed through”.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2022