The number of registered voters in Pakistan has increased by 21 million over a period of four years, according to data released by the Election Commission of Pakistan on Tuesday.

The data shows the total number of registered voters in the country in 2018 was nearly 106m, and the count rose to around 127m as of July 25 this year.

According to the latest figures, the number of female voters has increased from 46.7m in 2018 to 58.5m — comprising around 46pc of the total registered voters. Male voters, on the other hand, comprise 54pc or 68.5m of the total voters.

Meanwhile, an age-wise analysis of the data shows that youth, aged between 18-35, at around 57.1m, making up 45pc of those who are eligible to vote. The same percentage for the 2018 elections was 43.8pc.

The elderly — aged 56 and above — who have witnessed the country’s politics for a considerable time, amount to almost 24m or 18.9pc of the total voter count.

A district-wise breakdown of the data shows that Punjab residents make up the largest chunk of eligible voters — 72.3m or 56.9pc of all voters.

Sindh ranks second, contributing 26.6m voters that comprise 21pc of the total.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which now also includes the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is not far behind with almost 21.7m potential voters, who amount to almost 17.1pc of the voter count.

Balochistan residents make up 4.2pc of all voters at 5.3m while Islamabad has slightly more than a million voters, a mere fraction of the total.

The release of statistical data comes a day after it emerged that the preliminary delimitation of constituencies for the polls is expected to be completed by September 26, with the ECP expressing satisfaction over its pace.

On September 1, the ECP had announced squeezing timelines of the delimitation exercise by 14 days to complete the process on November 30, instead of the scheduled December 14.

Sources in the ECP, which had earlier been hinting at the possibility of general polls somewhere in the middle of February, after the development said it could pave the way for elections in the last week of January.