The campaign to register overseas Pakistanis for Internet voting (iVoting) in the upcoming by-polls evoked a lukewarm response, with only 7,419 expatriates – out of the total 632,000 – registering to avail of the facility offered to them for the first time in the country’s electoral history.
The process of registration of overseas Pakistanis from the 37 constituencies where by-elections are to be held on October 14 had started on September 1 and came to a close yesterday at 9am.
There would be no by-election held in one of the 37 constituencies as the candidate is unopposed (see screenshot of the ECP iVoting website https://www.overseasvoting.gov.pk/i-voting/).
According to a statement released by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the website for the overseas voters remained functional 24/7 throughout the registration process and did not face any technical problems.
The ECP said only voters holding national identity card for overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) and machine readable passports (MRPs) were able to register to vote.
As many as 632,000 overseas Pakistanis from the 37 constituencies settled in 177 countries of the world were eligible to vote through the Internet – which is 84% of the total overseas Pakistanis from the given constituencies.
Under the plan, the 7,419 registered voters will be sent voter pass (password) between October 10 and October 14 to the e-mail address that they had provided in their online application for registration, through which they would be able to cast their votes on election day.
On polling day, the voter shall log in to the website using his or her username and password, and enter the voter pass e-mailed earlier.
This will direct the voter to his or her registered national and provincial assembly constituencies to enable the casting of the vote.
A designated list of candidates of the selected constituency would then be displayed by the system and the voter shall select the election symbol of the candidate to cast the vote.
Upon successful submission of the vote, a “confirmation” message would be displayed on the screen.
The ECP had already uploaded on its website separate video tutorials in Urdu and English languages as well as step-by-step help materials to guide voters through the registration and voting process.
An advertisement campaign had been launched through media to create awareness about the facility of internet voting made available for the overseas Pakistanis and the embassies and consulates of Pakistan had also been involved in the campaign.
The complete procedure had been defined by the ECP after being ordered by the Supreme Court to provide the Internet voting facility to the overseas Pakistanis for the upcoming by-elections.
After two major opposition parties criticised the ECP for what they called a hasty move, the ECP initially said that it was just complying with the court orders.
However, it later said that it was not moving in haste and said the political parties should hail the initiative.
Online voting would be conducted for 36 constituencies.
