LAHORE, April 29: The Punjab Election Commission has completed arrangements to hold the presidential referendum across the province on Tuesday (today) from 9am to 7pm.

The commission has established 46,600 polling stations having 88,200 booths to facilitate about 37 million people of over 18 years of age to cast their votes all over the province and the federal capital. About 225,000 personnel have been appointed to conduct the polling.

In Lahore district, 3,907 polling stations have been set up for around 2.854 million voters.

The voters will be required to present their national identity card or any other document or identification attested by a BS-17 officer to cast vote. The voter will also emboss his/her thumb impression on the counterfoil of a ballot paper. The polling officer will be required to enter the name of the voter, his or her ID card number or the name of the attestor and then the presiding officer will put his signatures on the counterfoil.

Besides regular polling stations, the commission has set up polling stations in hospitals, colleges, universities, airports, railway stations, provincial secretariat, industrial units, banks, hotels, parks, jails and other public places.

The Lahore District has been divided into seven towns and 30 sectors. The district and sessions judge, who is the assistant returning officer, has appointed judicial officers as group officers/town and sector in charge for conducting the polling.

A PEC official told Dawn on Monday that all relevant material had been handed over to the presiding officers and they had been directed to report at their designated polling stations on Monday night.

The commission has send one ballot box for each polling booth besides an extra box for each polling station. On the average every polling station has two polling booths.

The commission has also printed 10 per cent more ballot papers than the number of eligible voters in the province to overcome shortage if reported from any polling station.

The commission had also given funds to the civil administration to arrange vehicles for the polling staff and material to and from polling stations. The commission has given Rs500 for each vehicle per day.

The commission will accept the expenditure on the basis of vouchers and names of drivers for each vehicle hired.

The PEC has also established eight information centres in its office. Every centre will collect information from three to four designated districts in the province. The commission has directed that each presiding officer should start counting the votes soon after the polling ends. Each presiding officer will be required to send the results to his tehsil. From tehsil level, the results would be communicated to districts and consequently to the provincial election commission.

In order to supervise the referendum, the Chief Election Commissioner, Justice Irshad Hasan Khan (retired) along with four commission members will visit all the four provinces on a special plane.

The commission members will also visit different polling stations, including the ones set up at the airport and the PTV offices in Lahore.

In the provincial metropolis, the city district government as well as political parties supporting the presidential referendum have hung large banners and put up portraits of Gen Pervez Musharraf, urging the people to cast ‘yes vote’ in favour of the general.

Several political parties, including Millat Party, Tehrik-i-Insaf, PML(QA), Pakistan Awami Tehrik and others have established ‘referendum camps’ and arranged vehicles for mobilizing voters. Some of them have also arranged wagons in order to transport the voters from their homes to the polling stations.