ISLAMABAD: President Arif Alvi on Saturday stressed digitalising the voting process and, without naming any person or authority, said that the country could have been saved from the current election results controversy if the EVMs had been in place.

“Remember ‘our’ long struggle for Electronic Voting Mac­hines. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today). But it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed. Totals of every candidate would have been available and printed within five minutes of the closing of poll,” he tweeted.

He said the entire effort that included over 50 meetings at the Presidency alone “was scuttled”.

“Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis,” he added.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2024