PESHAWAR, May 6: A total of 12.266 million voters will exercise their right of franchise in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on May 11.
The number is around 15.05 per cent more than that of the last 2008 elections when around 10.661 million people had cast vote in the province.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan data, a total of 5.255 million women voters are registered which is around 42.84 per cent of the total votes in the province, whereas the number of men voters is 7.01 million.
The highest number of voters are registered in NA-19 constituency of Haripur, which has 0.5318 million voters, whereas in NA- 23, Kohistan, the lowest number of voters, 0.1270 million, is registered.
For the elections, ECP will set up 9,300 polling stations including, 2,412 stations for men voters and 2186 stations for women voters whereas 4702 polling stations would be combined where separate polling booths would be set up for men and women voters.According to the ECP data, a total of 25114 polling booths would be set up having 14378 for men and 10736 for women.The total voters in the province include 7.010 million men and 5.255 million women voters.
The top 10 constituencies having maximum number of voters include: NA-19 Haripur 0.538 million voters (0.296 million men and 0.235 million women), NA-29 Swat I has 0.520 million voters (0.288 million men and 0.232 million women), NA-34, Lower Dir has 0.504 million voters (0.297 million men and 0.206 million women), NA-30 Swat-II has 0.460 million voters (0.256 million men and 0.204 million women), NA-26 Bannu has 0.444 million voters (0.263 million men and 0.180 million women), NA-20 Mansehra-I has 0.415 million voters (0.236 million men and 0.178 million women), NA-14 Kohat has 0.409 million voters (0.233 million men and 0,175 million women), NA-21 Mansehra-cum-Torghar has 0.392 million voters (0.222 million men and 0.169 million women), NA-24 DI Khan has 0.390 million voters (0.215 million men and 0.175 million women) and NA-3 Peshawar III has 0.383 million votes ( 0.218 million men and 0.164 million women).
Similarly, 10 districts having lowest number of voters are: NA-23 Kohistan has 0.127 voters (72,181 men and 54,847 women), NA-22 Battagram has 0.204 votes (0.117 million men and 87062 women), NA-32 Chitral has 0.206 million votes (0.120 million men and 86380 women), NA-16 Hangu has 0.214 million votes (0.126 million men and 88,259 women), NA-31 Shangla has 0.296 million votes (0.163 million men and 0.133 million women), NA-6 Nowshera II has 0.299 million votes (0.167 million men and 0.132 million women), NA-35 Malakand Protected Area has 0.311M votes (0.177 million men and 0.133 million women), NA-15 Karak has 0.315 votes (0.177 million men and 0.137 million women), NA-5 Nowshera I has 0.320 million voters (0.180 million men and 0.140 million women) and NA-1 Peshawar-I has 0.320 million votes (0.186 million men and 0.133 million women).
According to the Delimitation of Constituencies Act, 1974, the constituencies for elections to the National and Provincial Assemblies are to be delimited after every census. During the military rule of General (r) Pervez Musharraf the number of seats of the National and provincial assemblies were increased in 2002 keeping in view the last census of 1998 and the same was incorporated in the Constitution.
District wise the highest number of voters is registered in the four National assembly constituencies of Peshawar which are1.393 votes including 8.063 million men and 5.868 million women voters. Peshawar is followed by Mardan district where for three National Assembly constituencies 0.9871M votes are registered including 0.577 million men and 0.409 million women voters.Similarly, the third district with highest votes is Swat where for two National assembly constituencies a total of 0.9818M votes are registered with 0.544 million men and 0.437 million women voters.
Meanwhile, the provincial election commission, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has completed transportation and supply of election material to all the district returning officers and agency returning officers.
Official sources informed that the election material was sent to all the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and handed over to the concerned DROs and AROs.