General Elections 2023 to be held via electronic voting, vows govt

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has its eyes set on holding General Elections 2023 via electronic voting. 

Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said Monday the government had promised overseas Pakistanis they would be granted the right to vote in the next elections. 

He said all arrangements related to electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been completed and that Science and Technology Minister Shibli Faraz will hold a demonstration of the machines this week. 

The minister said that the government has made it clear to the ECP that it will provide the institution all the support and help it needs to conduct voting on electronic machines.

"General Elections 2023 will be contested under a new mechanism," he said.

Speaking outside the ECP office, Adviser to the Prime Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan said the commission had enacted roles but no law existed on electronic voting.

"We introduced an ordinance for this [electronic voting]," he said. "General Elections 2023 will be contested on electronic voting," vowed the prime minister's adviser.

Awan said the government would take the ordinance on electronic voting into Parliament. He clarified the government "will not be strict on the matter" of electoral reforms.

Shehbaz rejects EVMs proposal

PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had turned down the government's proposal to use electronic voting machines in the next general elections.

"The electronic voting system has been declared a failure by the entire world," the former Punjab chief minister had said a month earlier, adding that electoral reforms are undertaken with consultations of all key stakeholders, the public's opinion and by developing a consensus.

He had said the PML-N had undertaken electoral reforms in 2018 via consultations with all political parties in the country, including the PTI. "No one had any reservations with the electoral reforms undertaken during our era," he had said.