The commission has formed, for this purpose, six delimitation committees – one for each province, one for the federal capital, and one for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
If all goes according to plan, the exercise will be completed by May 3.
On the side, the ECP has launched a door-to-door campaign to verify some 7.3mn computerised national identity card (CNIC) holders who have not registered as voters.
The verification process is expected to be completed by the end of April.
A senior ECP official said that the per-seat quota of each district, determined on the basis of the provisional results of the population census, had been approved by the commission and is being conveyed to the delimitation committees.
He said the delimitation committees had undergone stringent training, and are a part of a geographical information system (GIS)-based mock delimitation exercise. “They have also been provided guidelines and a time frame in accordance with the law.”
He said the delimitation committees are to prepare draft proposals within 45 days, following which voters of a constituency would have 30 days to file an objection with the ECP.
Explaining the principles of delimitation, the official said that under the Election Rules 2017, as far as possible, the delimitation of constituencies of an assembly would start from the northern end of the district, or, an agency, and would then proceed clock-wise in a zigzag manner, keeping in mind that the population in the constituencies remained as close as is practicable according to the quota.
He said that variation in population between two or more constituencies should not ordinarily exceed 10%.
The delimitation committees will record reasons if, in exceptional circumstances, the variation exceeds the limit.
After draft proposals for delimitation of constituencies are finalised on Form-5, the delimitation committees will send them to the ECP which is expected to examine the proposals and make any alterations or modifications as it deems necessary.
The ECP will then publish the preliminary proposals along with report in its official gazette.
A voter in any constituency may, within 30 days after the publication of preliminary proposals, make a representation to the commission in respect of delimitation of constituencies of the district or agency their vote is registered in.
The voter’s representation could be in the form of a memorandum giving the grounds for such representation and details of how constituencies of an assembly in the district or agency may be delimited if the representation was accepted by the commission.
Referring to delays in the passage of the Elections Act 2017, followed by a delay in notification of the provisional census results and provision of relevant data and maps by the provinces and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the official said that under the previous plan, the appointment of returning officers (ROs) and district returning officers (DROs) is to be made in the last week of March 2018, but this would not be possible now as they could only be appointed after the completion of delimitations (expected to be completed by May 3).
He said that according to the law, DROs and ROs are to be appointed two months prior to the announcement of the election schedule, but this provision would now be violated due to no fault of the ECP.
He added that if all goes well, the election schedule would be announced somewhere around May 29.
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