A parliamentary panel on Tuesday recommended to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to declare null and void the elections' result of any constituency where the ratio of women voters is less than 10 percent of the total turnout. This recommendation was made in an in-camera session of sub-committee of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms, chaired by Zahid Hamid at Parliament House with a view to making the woman's vote mandatory in the elections following reports of barring women to cast their votes in KP-95 Lower Dir by-election on May 07, 2015.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Hamid said the committee took notice of the 'male-only' bye-elections in Lower Dir and recommended to ensure participation of women voters in the elections. According to him, the committee recommended that if women voters cast less than 10 percent of the total registered votes, the results of that constituency be declared as null and void.
He said the committee was also deliberating upon giving incentives to the voters for casting their votes with a view to increasing the turnout as well as to persuade every person above 18 years of age to cast his or her vote. He said that there are a number of proposals in this regard and the committee will discuss these in its next meeting. Zahid Hamid said the committee members were briefed about the biometric system by officials of Nadra and ECP, and it was decided that the upcoming by-polls in any constituency would be conducted under a biometric system as a pilot project.
However, he said that the experts, during the briefing, told the panel that biometric system being used in Venezuela, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria is not successful in achieving the desired objectives of 100 percent accuracy. About right to vote to the overseas Pakistanis, he said that the panel has made obligatory to ensure that overseas Pakistanis cast their votes, adding the ECP has been asked to finalise its recommendations in this regard and send to the committee by June 30. He said that the committee has also written to the ECP that all political parties are in favour of granting the right to vote to overseas Pakistanis.
Regarding the issue of transportation to facilitate voters on the polling day, he said that the ban will continue to be in place. However, transportation facilities would only be allowed to disabled persons. He further said the committee also recommended that polling stations would be set up at a distance of one kilometre instead of two kilometres.
Furthermore, he said the committee would also deliberate on giving representation to women from FATA on the seats reserved for women in both National Assembly and Senate. Earlier, the committee was briefed on biometric system of identification (including Iris recognition) and electronic voting machines (EVM) by the officials of Nadra, PTA, COMSATS, NUST, FAST-NUCES and IT consultants who gave their input on the matter.
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