ECP de-notifies Ayaz Sadiq, issues PP-16 by-poll schedule

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday de-notified Sardar Ayaz Sadiq as a Member of the National Assembly in line with the judement of the Election Tribunal, Lahore, announced on August 22.
The Election Commission said, “In pursuance to the judgment of the Election Tribunal in election petition No315 (Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi versus Sardar Ayaz Sadiq), the ECP hereby de-notifies the membership of Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in the National Assembly of Pakistan from constituency No NA-122, Lahore-V.”
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has issued the schedule for by-election in PP-16 (Attock-II). The seat fell vacant following the martyrdom of Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has already announced that they would not field a candidate in the by-poll as a mark of respect to the slain minister, whom he had paid tributes for his lead role in fighting terrorism in the Punjab.
According to the schedule, nomination papers will be filed on September 08-09 while scrutiny of the same will be conducted on September 10-11. The last date for filing appeals against and for acceptance of nomination papers is September 14. The revised list of candidates will be issued on September 17 and polling will be held on October 06.
The Election Commission has also issued a report about the pilot project of biometric voting in the recently held by-election in NA-19 Haripur. The report says that there were 60 biometrics machines used at 60 polling booths in 30 selected polling stations.
These biometric machines were obtained from the local telecom service provider for the conduct of its experimental use. The total number of registered voters in these polling stations was 37,924 whereas the polled votes were 15,723. The turnout in these polling stations was 41 percent.
As per the biometrics readings recorded by Nadra, the biometrically verified voters were 46 percent whereas not verified voters were 54 percent. The reasons of not biometrically verified voters were non availability of fingerprints in Nadra database, invalid CNIC, blocked CNIC and ‘callused’ fingers made poor quality that was not recognised by the system.
Since, the whole exercise was performed purely on an experimental basis, therefore, the impact (positive or negative) of use of biometric machines in the by-elections did not disturb the electoral process.
The Election Commission said it had successfully achieved the prime objective of the first pilot project that was to practically examine on the ground the overall performance of the processes and procedures carried out during the test run of biometric machines.
This demonstration, it noted, was extremely helpful to educate the stakeholders like contesting candidates, political parties, polling agents, polling staff, voters and general public about the significance of the use of biometric technology in the real elections with its merits and demerits.
This was the best approach to sensitise the general public about its use in electoral activity by following the ‘principle of evolution’ in a careful manner instead of revolution (sudden change) while introducing new technology in elections.
“In view of the outcome, it is recommended that the multiple pilot projects using biometrics shall be continued in different by-elections till the achievement of successful rate near to perfection where no legitimate voter would be deprived to get authenticated only because of any technical or operational reason,” the report said.
It said more pilot projects will be conducted on both offline and online methodologies to examine the success rate.