There was an uproar in the Senate Special Committee on Elections over the revelation that 4.8 million voters could not been identified out of total 84.3 million during the verification exercise by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Senate Special Committee on Election met here on Thursday to review the existing legislation pertaining to election matters and suggested ways and means to improve the system to facilitate the electoral process.
Senator Muhammad Jehangir Badar chaired the meeting. In a briefing to Special Committee, Secretary ECP Ishtiaq Ahmed said the Commission has verified the addresses of around 80 million voters through door-to-door campaign. As given addresses of 4.8 million voters were not verified against the given addresses (temporary and permanent), the Commission registered their vote on permanent addresses.
This prompted hot debate between the officials of ECP and Nadra and it was decided that separate comprehensive meetings will be arranged by ECP and Nadra on voter list. Earlier, Awami National Party Senator Muhammad Zahid Khan demanded of the commission to provide the details of such voters through provinces. Meanwhile, Senator belonging to Balochistan, Fateh Muhammad Hassani urged that a major proportion of ghost voters crossed the borders of Afghanistan and Iran and cast their votes in adjacent areas on the day of election. In addition, around 100,000 Afghans were given the right to vote. Without addressing these issues, fair and free election could not be held in the province, he urged, adding ghost voters should be deleted from the list.
Special invitee Senator Shahi Syed of ANP criticised the Commission for promoting ghost voters in Karachi on the base of voters lists given to the provincial election commission by a particular political party. In the support of his claim, he handed over documentary proof and a CD to the chair of the committee. He said it was unrealistic that a person was not registered on the same address where he had been living for last 20 years.
The committee members also urged that voters list contain 15 million names of dead persons. Chairman Nadra, Tariq Malik said total 19,87,285 CNIC of deceased persons were surrendered, but they could not force the relative to report any death to union council till the practice is made mandatory through legislation. He further explained the data base of 98.2 million CNIC holders is available with Nadra which was 96 percent of the total population (population census 1998). Chairman urged that the vote of a dead person could not be cast as all the polling staff would be provided pictorial voter lists.
Senator Farhatullah Babar also criticised two different statements given by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) former Justice Fakhurdin G Ebrahim and Secretary ECP regarding electoral voting machines in the past. The CEC claimed in his statement to media that electoral voting machines were ready and free and fair election could not be possible without them. But, Secretary ECP was told the committee that the electoral voting machines were being tested and the task of prototype was pending", he said, adding who was right!