ISLAMABAD, July 1: Chief Election Commissioner Chief Justice (retd) Irshad Hassan Khan announced on Thursday the procedure to update the electoral rolls for the forthcoming Local Government elections.

Earlier, these electoral rolls were prepared in 2000-2001 prior to the holding of Local Government elections and the Chief Election Commissioner issued notice to review these rolls with inclusion, deletion and correction of the names of voters.

The CEC observed, a large number of persons would have become eligible for enrolment as voters, a number of voters might have died or become disqualified and there might have been need for appropriate corrections.

"So a procedure is being laid down to fulfil this demand to update electoral rolls to facilitate the election process in the four provinces in a transparent manner," he said.

Under this procedure, the electoral rolls prepared for Local Government Elections, 2000-2001 shall be published as draft rolls in the offices of Registration Officers and Assistant Registration Officers and at some conspicuous place in each electoral area, inviting claims, objections and applications for corrections within such time as may be notified by the Chief Election Commissioner.

Any Pakistani national who is not less than 18 years of age on January 01, 2004, is not declared by a competent court to be of unsound mind and is deemed to be ordinarily residing in the electoral area would be eligible to be enrolled as voter.

Claim for inclusion of name shall be accompanied by an attested photostat of the Computerized National Identity Card issued under National Database and Registration Authority Ordinance, 2000.

A claim for inclusion of name shall be filed in Form "Alf" for Muslim voters and in Form "-A- (Bay)" for Non-Muslim voters. Objections for deletion of existing entries shall be filed in Form "(bay)" and applications for corrections in the existing entries of the electoral rolls shall be filed in Form "Jeem."

Claims, objections and applications for corrections shall be filed with the Registration Officers concerned or Assistant Registration Officers of the area. The CEC has also announced to suitably increase the number of Assistant Registration Officer in each district to facilitate the filing of claims, objections etc. -APP