EVMs, i-voting for overseas Pakistanis: Senate panel to get briefings from NADRA, MoST

ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Friday, decided to receive briefings, in its next meeting, from National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) regarding preparation of voter lists, internet voting (i-voting) for overseas Pakistanis and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The committee met under the chair of Taj Haider from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to review Elections (Amendment) Bill 2021 and Elections (Second Amendment) Bill 2021 -the two significant bills that envision the government's landmark electoral reforms agenda. These bills have been passed by National Assembly and are currently pending with the Senate panel.

In the meeting, Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Omar Hamid Khan briefed the committee regarding ECP's concerns over certain amendments proposed in the two bills. "These amendments will dilute constitutional powers of the ECP and shift them to NADRA, which is part of the federal government and is not an independent body like the ECP," he said. He said these amendments will result in shifting of voter registration powers to NADRA. "Voter registration is an exclusive power of ECP under Article 219 of the Constitution," he said.

The secretary ECP said some amendments proposed in the two electoral bills required delimitation of constituencies based on the number of voters instead of population, which, he said, is against the Constitution.

The committee also received a comprehensive briefing from Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan and Secretary Parliamentary Affairs Shakeel Malik on i-voting for overseas Pakistanis and EVMs.

The committee reviewed proposed amendments in Elections Act 2017 enabling overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote during the general elections in their country of residence.

The parliamentary affairs state minister categorically cited judgments of Supreme Court in favour of the proposed amendments.

The committee sought time to study these judgments for further deliberations. The committee also decided to further review the proposed amendments in Elections Act 2017 after reading an audit report prepared by Spanish firm Minsait. The committee asked the relevant officials to provide copies of the said audit report for further deliberations.

It merits a mention here that the said audit report by the Spanish firm reveals that NADRA's i-voting system has serious flaws; it lacks internationally practiced voting standards and needs further improvement to meet the international standards.

Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs recommended to the committee to call a briefing from MoST on i-Voting and EVMs. The committee then decided to get a briefing from MoST as well as NADRA.

Farooq Naek from PPP said the registration of female voters is significantly less compared to male voters. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar seconded Naek's viewpoint and said that implementation of law regarding over 10 per cent of the gender gap among voters should be ensured. "The campaign by NADRA on female voters' registration should be dealt with extra zeal to empower the role of women in the electoral process," she said.

The committee recommended to NADRA to register transgender voters and reduce the gender registration gap. The meeting was also attended by Railways Minister Azam Swati, Ali Zafar, Sajid Mir, Abida Muhammad Azeem and others. Senior officials from the ministries concerned and ECP also attended the meeting.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021