ISLAMABAD: Pilot project of Biometric verification of voters at 30 polling stations during by-elections in NA-19 Haripur on August 16 by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Nadra proved unsuccessful because of serious deficiencies in system and telecom network. ECP will officially made a report on this count public today (Monday) prepared by the returning officer on the basis of output from concerned presiding officers. According to sources, at six polling stations, biometric machines provided by a cellular company didn’t function at all because of signal and other technical problems. On all other polling stations, a large number of voters faced difficulties in getting themselves verified biometrically and could not succeed in many cases. There were serious problems with labourers and even some housewives or women having very dim thumb impressions. At one side where decisions are being made on basis of unreadable thumb impressions captured manually on paper, serious problems were witnessed in Haripur while capturing impressions digitally through biometric machines connected with main network through satellite signals. According to credible sources, top leadership of PTA and Nadra have informed ECP that their respective systems were not designed to tackle electoral exercise where millions of thumb impressions are being checked during course of 9 hours. However, both the institutions have shown their willingness to work for improvement and upgradation of system so it could support electoral process. Experts however say that same can be done and implemented in phases after checking authenticity, credibility, effectiveness and response during some pilot projects and it could not be launched on national level all of a sudden. Officials believe that even after its implementation there will be chances of manoeuvering of this system. Experts disclosed that this was the same reason that ECP given up the project of introducing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) as such machines, manufactured locally or internationally, can be hacked easily and whole process can be manoeuvererd by powerful players. Top experts remain associated with these developments said that some people wrongly cite example of India where EVMs are used during election process. They say that Indian machines are of inferior quality and can be very easily manoeuvred but such incidents usually don’t happen in India because Indian Election Commission is the strongest institution in the neighbouring country, which is not the case in Pakistan. In India, any person or official involved in any such manoeuvring of machines could be severely punished by their election commission. They say in Pakistan, despite all constitutional powers, ECP is not a strong or an influential institution and other institutions are very strong which can manoeuvre such systems easily. Experts say many advanced countries that switched to EVMs are coming back to more trustful and transparent manual system of voting.
