EC likely to defer door-to-door enumeration exercise: 25 million eligible voters without CNICs yet

The Election Commission of Pakistan is likely to defer the countrywide voters' registration campaign as over 25 million eligible persons have so far not been issued computerised national identity cards (CNICs), which is a prerequisite for getting enrolled in the voters list.
Although the Commission has made all arrangements for conducting door-to-door enumeration of voters, and the registration exercise was to commence from middle of this month, but the condition of CNIC is a main hindrance towards the conduct of this exercise.
According to Election Commission sources, there are over 78 million eligible voters in the country and, by next year's general election, this number would rise to 80 million, but Nadra has so far issued CNICs only to 52 million voters and it is very likely that over 25 million eligible persons would not be entitled to have their names in the voters' lists.
Ndr sources claim that the Authority has the capability of issuing 80,000 CNICs per day and, with this pace, it would take at least one more year to issue cards to all eligible persons who have attained the age of 18.
The Election Commission has already discarded the old electoral roll as it was replete with repetitions, errors and omissions.
The new Chief Election Commissioner, Justice Qazi Muhammad Farooq, has decided to compile fresh computerised electoral rolls for the whole country.
The Commission has also decided that provision of CNIC would be a 'must', and only those persons who possess CNIC issued by National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) would be enrolled in the voters' lists.
The Chief Election Commissioner has also requested the general public to acquire CNICs on priority before the start of the door-to-door enumeration. However, it is learnt that people have also shown lukewarm response towards acquiring CNIC particularly in the rural areas.
An official of the Election Commission said there was an option under consideration regarding keeping the registration open till the conduct of next general elections. With this option, all those persons who would not be able to get registered during the door-to-door enumeration would have the right to be a voter as soon as they acquired their CNICs. A final decision to this effect would be made in a meeting of the Election Commission, said the official. He said that the new voters' lists would be consolidated rolls and would be used for all elections of national and provincial assemblies and local government elections.