ISLAMABAD, April 8: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has informed the Supreme Court that making in haste arrangements for voting by overseas Pakistanis could affect the credibility of the coming general elections.

In a report submitted to the court, the ECP observed that it was not advisable to go for the exercise based on an “untested computer system”. It also stressed that necessary legal backing providing for proper procedure for voting by the Pakistanis abroad was required.

The report said the schedule for the general elections had already been announced and making arrangements for voting by overseas Pakistanis in various countries would not be practically possible. It said that anything done in haste would simply create unforeseen problems and seriously affect the credibility of the elections.

The report said the idea behind facilitating the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes was that every eligible Pakistani should be given the opportunity to vote. “If we are unable to establish polling stations in all the 120 countries where Pakistanis live, then it will go against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Pakistan has also ratified,” it said.

The voters could feel that they were being discriminated against when they were told that they had to travel long distances to cast their vote in the country of their residence or to a nearby country to cast their votes, the report said. The right to vote would be hampered if the universal suffrage was not kept in mind.

The ECP pointed out that there would be no observers and polling agents at the polling stations and the credibility of the voting process would completely depend on the integrity of a few government officials acting as polling personnel.

In case of an electoral dispute at a polling station there would be no mechanism to solve it on the spot. This meant that the polling process would go unsupervised and without a mechanism to address concerns of aggrieved parties.

The report said the diplomatic bags containing envelops might be lost, stolen or damaged during transportation, requiring the ECP to assess the impact of the ‘mishap’ on the results of the constituency to which the bags belonged.

In case of the US and the Middle Eastern and European countries, if the polling stations were established only in Pakistan’s diplomatic missions there simply wouldn’t be enough of them to cater to the huge number of Pakistanis there.

According to the statistics provided by the National Database and Registration Authority, about 1.5 million Pakistanis are living in Saudi Arabia alone. If polling stations are provided only in Pakistan’s embassy and consulate there, it will practically and logistically be impossible for such a large number of people to exercise their right to vote at a few booths within the limited time period available, resulting in disenfranchisement of a large number of voters.

The report said that different countries had different time zones which would directly affect the polling process as well as communication of results.

For instance, when preliminary results would be available in Pakistan, polling would still be going on in many countries, including the US. The completion of the polling process in such countries, many hours after the polling in Pakistan, could adversely affect the results.

It was also noted that signing of memorandums of understanding with host countries would be required. This was so because although the polling was proposed to be held inside Pakistan’s embassies and consulates, many of the countries did not allow gathering of a large number of people for political purposes.