Concern over biometric system
LAHORE
The Lahore Bar Association (LBA) election-2017 has been postponed after groups of lawyers expressed their concern over the credibility of the biometric system used for the first time in the polls.
A meeting has been called by the LBA election board chairman for January 16, to decide the next date of polling. Later, a committee will be constituted by the Punjab Bar Council to announce the date. According to LBA election board chairman Waqar Hassan Mir, the election was postponed after some lawyers started creating problems as they stopped few lawyers from casting their vote, claiming that they were not actual voters. However, the election board and the candidates are on the different frequency on the matter. The commission believes that the biometric system was functioning properly while the candidates declared it bogus.
The candidates contesting for the slot of president, Malik Arshad and Chaudhry Tanveer Akhtar, were on the same page regarding the postponement of the election. They believe the biometric system failed in the LBA election.
Sources who were witnessing the situation informed this scribe that the situation started deteriorating just after the start of polling as some groups of young lawyers made pandemonium questioning the credibility of the biometric system allegedly due to their vested interest. The sources said that the lawyers barred some 300 voters from casting their vote as there was a difference between the voter list provided by the Punjab Bar Council and the biometric voter list. The voters who were refused to cast their vote were not registered in the PbBC list but were registered in the biometric list. Moreover, the slow process of voting due to technical reasons added to the chaos as a number of voters waiting to cast their vote started increasing outside the polling booths.
Experts from the electronic voting software developing company concerned were summoned by the election board. However, the experts failed to remove the fault despite efforts for two hours. It has also been learnt that the board had asked the company to depute their operators on each booth to facilitate the voters who were using the biometric system for the first time but the company did not comply with the board directions which caused the postponement of the polling process.
Out of total 17,900 eligible voters, around 6,686 had got themselves registered under the electronic system to exercise their right to vote to elect the cabinet for year 2017-18.
The Friend’s group led by Asma Jahangir has fielded Malik Arshad for the slot of president while Chaudhry Tanveer Akhtar is contesting from the Professional group led by Hamid Khan.