The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) has observed that the quality of election result management significantly improved in the recent low-turnout by-elections of Pakistan held in 35 constituencies of national and provincial assemblies.
“While a considerable decline in the turnout in these constituencies as compared to July 25, 2018 is disconcerting, the transparency and efficiency of vote counting at the polling stations and tabulation of the provisional results by the returning officers (Form-47-provisional consolidated statement of the result of the count) was encouraging, improving the overall credibility of the electoral process,” says a report released by Fafen yesterday.
Provisional results for all of these constituencies were finalised by the 2am deadline as stipulated, with the exception of PB-40 (Khuzdar), it 
points out.
This demonstrable improvement coupled with strengthened enforcement of voting processes also correlates with Fafen’s long-term finding drawn from the observation of over 100 by-elections held between 2008 and 2018 that election quality is enhanced when the exercise is managed directly by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) officials as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs), in comparison to elections managed by officials employed from the lower judiciary for this 
purpose.
For by-elections, the ECP appointed regional election commissioners as DROs and district election commissioners as ROs, except for PP-164 (Lahore-XXI) where the deputy director (local government) was given the 
responsibilities of RO. 
Fafen deployed 1,737 election day observers 1,296 men and 441 women who observed the voting and counting processes at 4,038 polling stations in 11 National Assembly and 27 provincial assembly constituencies (13 in Punjab, nine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two each in Balochistan and Sindh).
The by-elections witnessed an increased number of registered voters on the electoral rolls 42,810 voters (18,540 men and 24,270 women) in comparison with July 2018 general polls.
Nearly 1% Fafen observers had been restricted from observing the voting process and around 6% from the 
counting process.
The Fafen observers reported a relatively lesser number of illegalities and irregularities 
during the voting process.
As many as 95% of the presiding officers interviewed by the Fafen observers said they were trained by the ECP and had the required understanding of using the results transmission system (RTS) and 95% of presiding officers successfully transmitted the results 
through RTS.