ECP Start Working on Electronic Voting Machine and Overseas Voting Mechanism

An important meeting of the Election Commission of Pakistan was held today, which was chaired by the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. Sikandar Sultan Raja. Apart from members of the Election Commission, the Secretary of the Election Commission and other senior officers also attended the meeting. The Provincial Election Commissioners of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also participated in the meeting through video link.

The Election Commission was briefed in detail about the Electronic Voting Machine and Overseas Voting and it was informed that the Project Management Unit (PMU) is working diligently on Electronic Voting Machine and Overseas Voting. An Expression of Interest has been published in various newspapers on April 12, 2022 to check the availability and quality of electronic voting machines. The deadline for submission of papers was April 15, 2022. 7 companies submitted (Expression of Interest).

These companies will give a detailed briefing on their products to the ECP in May 2022, after which the ECP will start working on the Pilot Project and Operational Feasibility with selected companies. The ECP directed the PMU officials to complete the work on this project as soon as possible so that the ECP could take the necessary steps in this regard. Has also set up a state-of-the-art research wing R&D in collaboration with cybersecurity specialists where experiments and systems on overseas voting in different countries are being studied and observed, and work is also being done on various options given by NADRA on overseas voting. The safest and easiest of all these options will soon be pilot tested.

The Election Commission was briefed on the progress of the work of reviewing the electoral rolls. The Election Commission told the Provincial Election Commissioners to keep an eye on this work and make sure it was done well.

The Election Commission was briefed about the arrangements made so far for holding local body elections in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. The ECP expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made so far and directed the Special Secretary to monitor all arrangements on a daily basis, especially the timely printing of electoral rolls and the provision of districts, and report to the Election Commission to ensure the timely completion of all election arrangements.

The Election Commission was briefed to complete the delimitation work so that the necessary maps and other data would be received from all the provinces by the end of this week. The Election Commission has arranged training for the delimitation committees and as per schedule, delimitation work of National and Provincial Assemblies will be completed on August 3, 2022.