ECP ordered to ensure expatriates’ voting rights

ISLAMABAD: The government has promulgated a presidential ordinance authorising and binding the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to enable the overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote while staying in their country of residence in the next general elections and to procure electronic voting machines (EVMS).

Another ordinance provided for protection of parents and their security against forced eviction from homes.

An amendment in Section 94(1) of the Elections Act said that the ECP shall, with the technical assistance of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) or any other authority and agency, enable overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote during general elections in their country of residence.

A change in Section 103 stated that the ECP shall procure EVMS for casting of votes in general elections.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that the government move was aimed at providing ample time to the ECP to make arrangements for the use of EVMS and for enabling the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the next general elections.

However, the ECP rejected the government claim that it was on board on the mater. An official said the ECP was not part of the meetings chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan on the use of technology in the elections, while the meetings held at Aiwan-i-sadr were “academic in nature” where only the concept of voting machines and their specifications, and not policy issues, came under discussion.

He recalled that the premier had been shown a nine-year-old “lab-produced voting machine” that the ECP had rejected at the very beginning for lacking features of international standards. He said the government had promulgated the ordinances in haste and neither the government nor the ECP had the solution available with them. “They have simply done it on the basis of imagination,” he remarked.

The ECP official said internet voting was not in use anywhere across the world, except Estonia, where 175,000 out of total 900,000 voters opted for it.

The official said there were around nine million holders of National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) of over 18 years in the world, with 1.8m of them living in Saudi Arabia alone, followed by around 1.5m in the United Arab Emirates. The names of these nine million overseas Pakistanis are also on the electoral rolls.

He said the ECP was not against technology but at the same time could not support the idea of using insecure technology.