The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has finalized the preparations to use the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during by-election in NA-4, Peshawar. The voting system will be introduced first time in the country. Briefing the media persons at press club here on Thursday, the ECP Director General Information Technology, Mohammad Khizar Aziz said the ECP has planned to launch several EVM and bio-metric pilot projects during the by-elections in the country under section 103 of the recently promulgated Election Act 2017.
He said the report of using EVM will send to parliament, media and general masses, after the formal approval of chief ECP. He said the candidates, who contesting NA-4 by-election have expressed complete satisfaction over the introduction of EVM system, as they had also submitted affidavit with the election commission in this regard. He said as many as 269 polling stations would be established during NA-4 by-poll in Peshawar.
Accompanied by ECP Director IT, Haider Ali, Director Election, Mohammad Farid, DRO Peshawar, Mohammad Fahim, Mohammad Saeed Sabir, and Sohail Khan, Aziz informed that more than 100 electronic machines will be used at more than 100 polling booths of 35 polling stations in both urban and rural areas for the first time in the history of the country.
He furthermore said around 47,255 voters would cast their votes through the EVM's along with their manual voting process in the constituency. He clarified that the electronic voting system could not disturb the original manual electoral process.
The official elaborated the hypothetical name and electoral signs have given in the electronic voting machines, wherein the registered voters will cast their vote through EVM's system along with manual voting process.
Aziz further said that the four-different systems, including GIS, result management, result transmission and EVM will simultaneously use during the by-poll in NA-4, which will ensure free, fair, and transparent electoral process.
Besides using machines for voting, the official said the ECP has decided to use mobile phones to send results of NA-4 Peshawar by-election from polling stations to the returning officer.
According to ECP official, under the pilot project, the presiding officer will send the result of respective polling stations to the returning officer through use of this new technology, "which is more efficient and fast".
He said the result could be sent directly to the computer system of the returning officer. The ECP would be able to receive the results from polling stations faster through this system, he added.
When asked about the financial expenditure on procurement of EVMs, he replied that EVMs are much costly therefore, the ECP had so far purchased more than 150 machines. Later, on the occasion, the technical staff of ECP held a pilot testing session to demonstrate how the electronic voting machines can be used, wherein several participants, including journalists cast vote through EVMs system.
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