Suriya Jamal<\/p>\n
The 7 th of December is declared as National Voter Day by the Election Commission of Pakistan. It\u2019s the date when voting took place in 300 constituencies of National Assembly on general enfranchisement basis which came up with the first chamber of a Unicameral Parliament of Pakistan(7 th December, 1970) The Election Commission take very seriously the responsibility bestowed upon the commission by the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to organize honest, just and fair elections. ECP take it as an obligation to make the process accessible to all eligible voters, so that the people of Pakistan can exercise their right to express their political will and elect their leaders. The electoral process is intricate and expansive, covering every aspect of elections, including civic and voter education, voter registration, Election Day processes, electoral dispute resolution and much more. Article 219 of the Constitution, charges the Commission with the responsibility of holding general elections to the National Assembly, Provincial Assemblies and the local governments, preparing electoral rolls and revising them annually is well as conducting elections to the Senate and filling up the vacant seats in the Parliament and the Provincial Assemblies. Article 140-A also gives the ECP the responsibility of holding local government elections. Further, the Commission is also empowered to appoint Election Tribunals to adjudicate upon post-election disputes.
\nPakistan held its last General Election on 11 May 2013 after completion of five-year term of the government elected in 2008. The elections were politically and technically very challenging. These elections had the largest number of registered voters – 86,189,802 – including 37,597,415 women and 48,592,387 men. There were 10,958 contesting candidates, including 419 women. The number of election observers, both national and international, touched 50,000. Additionally, a very active electronic and print media closely watched these elections.
\nAiming to further enhance voter participation in the next general elections, the ECP is engaging all stakeholders and take measures in this regard. Undoubtedly, voter engagement is a major challenge that the ECP will address through development of a comprehensive strategy, including introduction of electoral awareness in school\/college curricula.
\nCivic And Voter Education plan aims to provide information and contribute towards educating citizens about their rights and obligations in regard to elections and democracy with the aim to make the electoral processes more credible and accountable through their participation, it is a way forward to achieve the major objectives of maximizing the voters turnout in elections, minimizing the male and female gap in voting 2process and encouraging women and other underprivileged classes where they are prohibited to use their right to vote in a free, fair and secure environment and to motivate urban well educated segments of the population living in posh areas of large cities to actively participate in electoral process.
\nECP has declared the 7th of December as the National Voters Day. Special programs are organized on this day. The main function is organized at presidency. The Honorable President of Pakistan would be the chief guest on the occasion. Similar activities are also planned in provinces at Governor Houses where the the Governor of the respective province would be the chief guest of the NVD ceremony.
\nMedia as a partner is engaged to highlight ECP\u2019s work as well as educate citizens on civic and voter education. This would include engaging public and private media including electronic channels and FM radio to publicize ECP messages. To fulfill its mandate The ECP is utilizing all its resources and built human and material capacity so that democracy is further strengthened through a more robust electoral reform process. The need for reforms was also demonstrated during the post-election review process where all aspects were analyzed through a comprehensive methodology. Continuing with its reform process, the ECP launched its 8300 SMS service, which was used by approximately 55 million voters until a few days before the general elections to check their names on the voter list, polling stations, serial number on the electoral roll and the electoral block. The system was very helpful to voters.
\nThe Election Commission of Pakistan approved plan for annual revision of Electoral Rolls for the year 2016 in which all new national identity cards (NIC) holders were made part of the Electoral Rolls and all voters who have become disqualified (deaths\/cancelled NICs) were excluded from the Rolls after their door-to- door verification followed by display process. The Voter count is expected to be increased from 93 million to 97-98 million after the said revision process.ECP is also procuring the list of officers of federal and provincial governments for appointment of honest, efficient and trustworthy officers during the forthcoming General Election 2018. The work on developing of manuals and handbook for training of District
\nReturning Officers, Returning Officer and polling staff have been started so that the quality of training could be ensured will before the election schedule The work on procurement of different essential items required in elections has salso been started to ensure quality and timely procurement of election material. The Gender and Disability Electoral Working Group comprises of a group of member organizations from key civil society organizations, relevant state institutions and international partner organizations to support the Election Commission of Pakistan by giving strategic support at the national level in gender mainstreaming the electoral process, generating dialogue and enhancing collaboration between ECP and member organizations. These member organizations will research, prepare proposals and 3 support implementation of field activities at the grassroots level to increase electoral participation of women, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups across Pakistan. These Working Groups are also being established at the provincial level, and shall operate with a provincial focus.
\nThrough its increased involvement in organizing elections at various levels in line with its constitutional obligations, the Election Commission of Pakistan has recently been greatly focused in media as well.
\nTo be continued
\nOver the years, various wings in the ECP have developed a great deal of experience in both organizational and methodological aspects of field operations. The media training for the officers of ECP is part of ECP effort to train its officials to bring its collective experience at various levels before the nation through a very vibrant media and to to facilitate them to provide fair balance accurate and timely coverage of elections Interpersonal skills and capacity building training program \u201dfor the officers of ECP is intended\\ to make election experts out of each one of them.The election commission of Pakistan formed 102 District Voters Education Committees at district level as an important instrument to achieve the goals of Civic and Voter Education Plan 2016 through various activities.These committees operate under the chairmanship of District Election Commissioners in each district of Pakistan. Other members included staff of provincial and district government departments, the local CSOs, lawyers, media personnel other nobles and dignitaries from the area etc. These committees will be responsible to lead the voter and civic education work in their respective districts. These will be instrumental in the success of the ECP endeavors to develop linkages for synergies, and expanding the ECP utreach to have more direct relationships with voters at the grassroots level. Thesecommittees will primarily aim at orchestrating state and non-state stakeholders and resources to achieve the targets set under the approved voter and civic education plan, providing a forum at the district level where multiple stakeholders get an opportunity to share their views, plan and implement activities jointly, review the progress and take corrective and preventive actions for furthering the cause of voter education.
\nThe ECP is also making efficient use of technology to make elections process swift and sound. Locations of polling stations are to be added to google maps and have started a training program for result management The Polling station wise Result Management System (RMS) was used first time in General Election 2013 and now it has been specially designed for upcoming General Elections to improve the accuracy, efficiency and transparency of the result tabulation process. RMS is being used by the Returning Officer (RO) in pilot projects during Bye- Elections at the time of preparing \u2018unofficial results\u2019 and for consolidation of election results. The RMS has the capacity to store all the scan pages of Forms-XIV, XVI & XVII4 along with data stored into the database permanently for Audit trail accountability purposes.
\nGeographical Information System (GIS) based Polling Stations is the facility by using which voters\u2019 can see their Polling Station exact location on Google Map before the Poll Day using ECP\u2019s official website. Multiple Pilot Projects were conducted in Phase-I that encompass 9248 Polling Stations of Provincial Capitals (Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar) found successful and very beneficial for general public and ECP officials for sake of transparency and accuracy. Now ECP has initiated Phase-II drive to cover all the remaining Polling Stations of the Country. This gigantic exercise of gathering Geo Tagging co-ordinates is being carried out by the ECP with the assistance of respective Provincial Governments and the UNDP.
\nThe ECP had proudly launched Award winning World\u2019s First Voters SMS (8300) facility February, 2012. Since then we have received about 100 Million hits. By using 8300 SMS technology, voter can send his\/her 13 digit CNIC at 8300 SMS short code using mobile phone and in reply s\/he can get voting information (CNIC, name and number of polling station, tehsil, district, name and number of constituency, serial number in the electoral area block code, local council name and number). About 93 million plus voters can see voting details and this facility is available for 120 Million users nationwide. It is extremely reliable, secure, instant and speedy mobile voting service available 27\/7\/365 days.
\nOn the desire of Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms, the processes of Procurement of 400 Electronic Voting Machines and 300 Biometrics Verification Machines are in pipeline and these machines will be used in Pilot Project in upcoming bye-elections after December 2016. The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Biometrics Verification Machines (EVM\/BVM) are two separate projects that deal the automation of voter\u2019s identification & authentication at the polling station and casting a vote using machines rather than traditional paper ballot and stamp. If these pilot projects will be observed as successful then the scale of testing can be enhanced gradually by following the \u2018principle of evolution\u2019 as per International Best Practice and Standards.
\nConcluded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Suriya Jamal The 7 th of December is declared as National Voter Day by the Election Commission of Pakistan. It\u2019s the date when voting took place in 300 constituencies of National Assembly on general enfranchisement basis which came up with the first chamber of a Unicameral Parliament of Pakistan(7 th December, 1970) The Election Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article"},"yoast_head":"\n