While political parties fight over who gets to form the government at the centre and each of the provinces, there are cries from various quarters of their mandate having been stolen.

But what does that mean? How many Pakistanis actually exercised their right to adult franchise on Feb 8? And where the voter turnout was less than ideal, does the winning candidate actually represent the will of the people?

In the words of political analyst Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, voter turnout is as vital a sign of the political health of a democracy as blood pressure in a human body.

Broadly speaking, a total of 60.8 million voters exercised their right to vote in Pakistan’s 12th general elections, according to an analysis conducted by Dawn.com through the published Form 47s of the 264 constituencies, whose results have been announced, on the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) website. This number was almost 6 million more compared to when 54.8 million Pakistanis cast their votes in 2018.

Besides voter turnout, the data contained in the Form 47s also shed light on at least two other key patterns — the number of rejected votes and the disparity between female and male voters in each constituency.

Read more here.