Pirzada’s question clears confusion in many minds

ISLAMABAD: Abdul Hafeez Pirzada’s question to Nadra Chairman Usman Mobeen on Thursday removed confusions prevailing in many minds, especially those from the PTI.
After chairman Nadra’s explanation of the whole process of verification of thumb impressions on counterfoils or Computerised Voting Lists (CVLs) in different categories, the discussion automatically moved towards those counterfoils carrying thumb-impressions which were unreadable for Nadra system and PTI counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada asked Usman Mobeen:
Q: Can you say that counterfoils carrying thumb-impressions not readable by Nadra system and on which Nadra gave no opinion were ‘invalid votes’?Chairman Nadra: No, I can’t say they were invalid votes.
Q: Can you say that counterfoils carrying thumb-impressions not readable by Nadra system and on which NADRA gave no opinion were ‘valid votes’?
Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk objected to the question and told Pirzada that it was unnecessary question and answer to previous question also answers this. If he can’t say those were ‘invalid votes’, how could he say that those were ‘valid votes?’
Pirzada however insisted on his question and requested the commission that if chairman Nadra wanted to respond, he should be allowed to answer. The Chief Justice said it is already answered but if chairman Nadra wanted to respond he can.
Chairman Nadra: Yes. 97% of those would be ‘valid votes.’
The response surprised everyone in the courtroom. PTI chief Imran Khan could not hide his anguish and even Chief Justice asked Mobeen Yousaf, “How can you say this?”
Chairman Nadra: I can say this on basis of two things; 1)- In cases where Nadra system could read thumb impressions there was 97% authentication of thumb impressions. 2)- On counterfoils carrying thumb-impressions which were not readable by Nadra system, the CNIC number of any voter noted down by any government officer by checking the original CNIC at any polling station was correct in 100% cases and was registered in the constituency and for that specific polling station which that voter visited for vote. So on the basis of these two facts, I believe that those counterfoils carrying thumb impressions not readable by Nadra system were ‘valid votes’ in 97% cases.
This cleared the confusions in many minds.
Nadra chairman also explained that his organization does not have a fingerprints expert and that the authority doesn’t forensically examine thumb impressions. Responding to PML-N’s Shahid Hamid’s question Usman explained that Nadra couldn’t enlarge any thumb impression as is done during forensic examination of fingerprints for the purpose of comparing two or more fingerprints. He explained that Nadra’s job is to merely compare or match, through software, the provided thumb impression or fingerprint with the ones saved in its database.
Usman Mobeen also explained that not all the thumb impressions saved in Nadra database are digitally captured and many taken at the initial stages were captured manually and thumb impressions of such voters could also not be verified.
In response to a question asked by ECP counsel Salman Akram Raja, chairman Nadra said that if a presiding officer while noting down any 13-digit CNIC will write any single digit wrong that could constitute CNIC number of a different voter. While manually noting down 13-digit CNIC numbers of 200,000 to 300,000 votes in a constituency at an average, there are chances of human error and if presiding officer could forget to note down CNIC number in some case, could write incomplete or illegible numbers, they could also write a wrong digit which would constitute a new number which could not be issued by Nadra and hence will be placed in category of ‘invalid votes’ or could become a CNIC number of some other person not registered in that constituency and not necessarily every such case will be of fake or bogus voter.