Biometric, electronic voting machines: parliamentary body seeks practical demonstration

A sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms on Thursday asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to provide a practical demonstration of electronic voting machines in the next meeting. Federal Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid, who is also convener of the sub-committee, said that if the use of biometric/electronic voting machines is hundred percent credible, then necessary legislation would be done in this regard.
The sub-committee also sought details from the ECP on the estimated cost needed to buy and install the electronic voting machines across Pakistan. Giving a briefing to the committee members, the ECP officials said that an electronic voting machine would contain as many buttons as the number of candidates in a particular constituency.
A voter can press the button designated for a particular candidate in the constituency to cast his vote, the officials informed the committee members. If there are 65 candidates in a constituency, the machine would have 65 buttons. Zahid Hamid questioned the officials that a voter would know about a particular button for his candidate. The officials also briefed the committee members about the countries where the electronic voting machines were being used for elections, besides detailing merits and demerits of the system.
The ECP officials pointed out a few countries that had implemented electronic voting method and later reverted to traditional ballot voting. About the fake CNICs, the NADRA officials said that anybody can prepare fake identity cards, but their system cannot identify it. The ECP officials, however, said that a voter would be required to carry original CNIC to cast vote even if the biometric system is installed for elections.
If a person tries to cast vote with fake identity card, then machine would ring an alarm to alert the polling officials present on the spot, they said. The Political Parties Order 2002 was also briefly discussed during the meeting as the committee seeks to make amendments to the law.
"At present, there is no specific law to get registered a political party with the election commission," Hamid said, adding that the committee would recommend amendments to the Political Parties Order 2002 after detailed discussions with the relevant people. The sub-committee asked the poll body officials to provide more information on the system in the next meeting scheduled for November 17.