- ECP additional secretary says no voter will be excluded from election process
- Voter’s identities to be verified using their national identity cards
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Additional Secretary Fida Mohammad Khan has said that the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has no biometric data of 20,607 voters in the NA-120 constituency where by-elections will be held on Sept 17.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, he said that ECP had decided to install biometric verification machines at 100 polling booths in 39 polling stations on a test basis, but voters whose fingerprints were not in NADRA’s database would not be able to participate in the process.
The additional secretary said that these voters would not be excluded from the process, as their identities would be verified using their National Identity Cards. To a question, he said that the voters would first be verified through the standard process and then through biometric machines.
He said that NADRA had the complete data of 291,880 NA-120 voters and would be able to verify their identifications through the biometric machines. The total number of the voters in the constituency is 321,786.
The additional secretary said that the voters who choose to participate in biometric verification would be made to sign an agreement and be briefed on the process by a polling officer. He said that provision of electricity to every polling station would be a challenge for the ECP.
The NA-120 seat was vacated after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped down after being disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case. Begum Kulsoom Nawaz is now contesting for the seat as PML-N’s candidate, against Yasmin Rashid of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Faisal Mir of the Pakistan People’s Party among other candidates.
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