Huge mess found in voters list

Faheem Akhter Malik

ISLAMABAD – The Election Commission of Pakistan found huge irregularities in national voting lists and decides to start a national survey to verify and fix these errors. National voting survey of ECP will go on until March 2022. On finding these irregularities in voting lists and on misconduct, the director of management information systems (MIS) Babar Malik has been sacked and inquiry begins against him.

Sources claim that the committee ECP founded for investigation has submitted it's report with suggestions. Committee submits that two million voters were registered on a third (temporary) address and they all were transferred to their permanent address without door to door, person to person verification and consultation. This two million voters transfer created a huge mess in national lists and voters blocs. Committee suggests a voter to voter survey to fix this issue. ECP approves door to door national survey on suggestion of the committee.

ECP has asked the provincial election commissioners to submit the information about the numbers of data collectors and display centers. Training of the team will be conducted in second phase and then national voters survey will be launched which will consult and verify more than 11 crore voters. Voters lists will be displayed at Display Centers countrywide which will give a chance to every voter to recheck their record and apply for correction if needed. After the correction phase, final and ultimate lists of national voting database will be launched on which general elections 2023 will be conducted. Current voter lists are valid until the finalizations of new lists for election 2023.