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Thursday March 28, 2024

Total number of votes differ from ECP website

By Tariq Butt
August 13, 2018

ISLAMABAD: There is a clear difference between the total number of votes contesting parties have been shown by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on its website to have got in the contest for the National Assembly and all the ballots it secured in the provinces. Apart from this difference, there is also dissimilarity between the total votes cast for the Lower House of Parliament and the ballots got by all the contesting parties and individuals.

This discrepancy comes to 1,406,719 votes. These ballots are less in the provinces than the total exhibited on the website. The votes got by all the competitors were 52,996,229. But when the votes cast in the provinces were calculated, they came to 51,589,510 ballots – 9,993,163 in Sindh; 33,176,574 in Punjab; 6,602,368 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP); and 1,817,405 in Balochistan.

According to the ECP website, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which stood first in terms of popular votes and number of national seats, secured 16,886,793 votes. But when its gains in all the provinces were added up, these were 14,832,841 ballots – 1,424,605 in Sindh; 11,165,976 in Punjab; 2,132,517 in KP; and 109,743 in Balochistan. Hence a difference of 2,053,952 votes, which were less than its total votes.

While giving every kind of details on ECP website, the facts and figures of federal capital Islamabad are shown with Punjab and those of tribal areas are shown with KP. However, if the votes gained by the PTI from Islamabad and tribal areas are separately added to its votes from all the four provinces, still the numbers are much less than the total votes shown by the ECP as having been secured by the PTI from the whole country.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as the second biggest party as per the ECP. It was shown to have bagged as many as 12,935,236 ballots. But the votes it was shown to have got in the provinces came to 11,447,532 ballots – 233,565 in Sindh; 10,530,766 in Punjab; 655,144 in KP; and 28,057 in Balochistan. There was a difference of 1,487,704 votes.

The ECP displayed that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) secured a total of 6,913,410 votes. But it got 6,307,989 ballots when its provincial gains were totaled. It secured 3,857,346 ballots in Sindh; 1,789,758 in Punjab; 604,790 in KP and 56,095 in Balochistan. Hence a difference of 605,421 votes.

As per the ECP, the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) obtained a total of 2,234,338 votes whereas the ballots it got in the provinces were 2,384,959 votes – 408,029 in Sindh; 1,887,913 in Punjab; 77,994 in KP; and 11,023 in Balochistan. There is a difference of 150,621 ballots.

This was a unique difference. In all the other cited cases, the ballots exhibited by the ECP to have been secured by these parties were more than their gains in provinces. But in the TLP’s case, its provincial votes were more than its total ballots, quoted by the ECP. Importantly, the votes cast for the national seats of the federal capital and tribal areas were not separately stated on the ECP website. But generally the Islamabad seats are bracketed with Punjab’s and the tribal belt’s seats are put with the KP’s for all practical purposes.