*ECP report states ROs amended polling scheme in ‘last few days’, confusing polling staff and voters
*Accuses ROs of replacing trained staff with inexperienced personnel at polling stations
*Says ROs failed to accomplish task of identifying and selecting polling stations
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has for the first time admitted serious irregularities in 2013 General Elections and has put the blame on the Returning Officers (ROs).
An ECP report released Monday on the ECP website states that the ROs received their appointment notifications 15 days before the elections but the deadline given for finalisation of polling scheme was abruptly shortened.
The report adds that the ROs amended the polling scheme in the “last few days” of the election schedule, causing confusion among the polling staff, voters and others.
“They (ROs) also changed the polling staff at the last minute, replacing trained staff with inexperienced personnel,” the report says.
According to the ECP report, the ROs failed to accomplish their task of identifying and selecting polling stations.
The report states that most of the polling stations were congested and two to three polling booths were set up in one small room, thus reducing the polling staff’s efficiency.
The report pointed out that there was shortage of transport for polling staff and the staff had to wait for busses after the completion of their duty until the staff at nearby polling stations completed their job and there was not enough space on the buses for the polling staff or the transport of election-related materials.
The Commission said some influential candidates managed to shift their opponents’ voters to far-flung areas on the electoral rolls so that they could not cast their vote.
The report discloses that many candidates were cleared without proper verification as the scrutiny cell established in the ECP headquarters did not perform effectively and many ROs did not receive candidates’ data from National Accountability Bureau, State Bank of Pakistan and Federal Board of Revenue, or were provided information after the scrutiny process was over.
QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF ELCTION-RELATED MATERIALS:
Admitting ECP’s failure, the report says the election material like voting screens, ballot paper, scissors and pens were sub-standard and the district election commissioner offices did not have adequate storage facility for the material
The report says that the ROs did not take the responsibility of retrieval of election material and the Presiding Officers were unaware of shortage of election material as they did not check the quantity of material against the invoice and came to know about the shortage on polling day.
The report adds that envelopes for packing candidates’ ballot papers were less in number and small in size as compared to the size of the papers. Moreover, there was also a shortage of tamper-evident bags. Most presiding officers did not properly pack the tamper-evident bags and other material.
UNTRAINED STAFF:
“Most of the polling staff was unaware of the newly introduced magnetised ink and its purpose, and thus normal inkpads were used in lieu of magnetised inkpads.”
The report says untrained staff was engaged for tabulation and mistakes in Form XIV negatively influenced the result tabulation.
ROs preferred the manual system and the Result Management System (RMS) was used as secondary mechanism, the report adds.
In the report, ECP said that the introduction of RMS was a good idea but admitted that there were several flaws in it due to which no result could be processed in Sindh during the entire night after the polls.
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