The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has asked the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to update final electoral rolls (FER-12) by adding 781,735 voters who were issued CNICs after the printing of FER-12 on May 31st this year, said a NADRA spokesperson in a statement issued on Monday.
NADRA had received directions from the ECP that names of new CNIC holders would be enrolled as voters on monthly basis after verifying their physical presence through door to door verification. “However in first instance all new CNICs which were issued by NADRA during the month of June 2012, July 2012 and August 2012 will be included in FER 2012,” the report said. Clarifying the confusion generated by some media reports about difference in the numbers of CNICs issued, the spokesperson said that according to Economic Survey of Pakistan (derived from National Institute of Population Studies-NIPS), the Population of Pakistan in year 2012 was estimated as 180.71 million, with the adult ratio of 51.25 percent. According to these statistics, the adult (18 years and above) population of Pakistan is 92.61 million, excluding AJK and GB.
It may be mentioned here that since its inception in year 2000, NADRA has issued 91,379,788 CNICs to adult citizens who are also eligible as voters. While elaborating the difference between CNICs issued, she said around 7 million cards had been issued to citizens of AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan which did not reflect in Final Electoral Rolls (FER-12) as these citizens were not eligible to vote in general elections in Pakistan.
“Some 2,368,393 CNICs issued to the AJK citizens, who are not resident of Pakistan, do not qualify eligibility criteria of being voter according to section 7 of Electoral Rolls Act, 1974,” she said.
According to her, 576,474 CNICs were issued to GB residents and 1,987,225 CNICs holders were deceased according to Civil Registration Management System (CRMS) and NADRA death records.
She added further that 17,384 CNIC holders had surrendered their nationality and had obtained POC (Pakistan Origin Card) and 548,568 records were under verification. “Once their due verification process is complete, such records will become eligible for induction in voter’s list. Meanwhile, 484,918 CNIC were forwarded to ECP for verification, and were subsequently not verified, hence not registered as voter,” the spokesperson maintained. She added that NADRA understood there were segments of uncovered population mainly women. Although, NADRA had extended its registration services to the door steps of citizens through its mobile registration units and had established women-only Data Acquisition Centers. Even all these steps did not bring the desired results, she said. She maintained that a comprehensive community mobilization campaign by political parties, civil society and print/electronic media could increase the registration of marginalized cadre. “NADRA is ready to go the extra mile for registering any eligible citizen,” she said, adding that any individual who obtained CNIC before announcement of General Elections would be enrolled as voter only after proper verification of concerned Registration Officer of ECP.
