Verification of electoral rolls: ECP begins door-to-door drive

On the request of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) started door to door campaign for verification of electoral rolls on Monday. According to ECP schedule, the verification process started from August 22 and will continue till September 30, during which over 100,000 persons will go door to door for verification of the electoral rolls.
The ECP had earlier announced that the verification campaign will commence from August 8, but called it off after NADRA requested the ECP to postpone the process on the ground that it required time to print the Draft Electoral Rolls of 80 million voters, sources in ECP revealed.
In a recent meeting with ECP, the deputy chairman NADRA apprised the ECP about practical problems, which caused a delay in printing of more than 80 million voters' details in the Draft Electoral Rolls. NADRA requested revision of 8 August timeline earlier set by the ECP for door-to-door verification.
Around 100,000 numeration staff was trained by ECP, for conducting verification in the newly devised 145,000 census blocks across the country with assistance from the census organisations. On the request of NADRA, the ECP increased the number of Census Blocks from 102,000 to 145,000. People with two addresses would be given the option to register as voter at their place of choice.
According to details each Census Block contains 200 to 250 houses or 1200 to 1500 people and the Census Department would likely expand these blocks further. The electoral rolls would be finalised in the light of data of over 80 million adults collected by NADRA and the voter lists made in Final Electoral Rolls 2007.
The final voters' list will be displayed for 21 days in the month of October at various locations across the country so that the citizens can be provided a chance to verify their names and complain about any error, objection and correction. The ECP with the help of NADRA is preparing transparent database and the CNIC number would be used as a unique identifier for the existing voters' list to discourage the trend of fake voting and to avoid double entry. An official of ECP urged that it is for the first time in the history of Pakistan that such electoral rolls database is going to be made which will eliminate all possibility of double and bogus voter lists.