Commission says additional ballot papers not misused

ISLAMABAD: The report of the general elections 2013 inquiry commission has maintained that printing additional ballot papers in the elections was not something out of the ordinary.
The report has also stated that there was no evidence produced before the commission that the excessive ballot papers were used in favour any political party.The inquiry commission’s report said that based on circumstantial evidence the commission is unable to find that the unused ballots were misused in favour of the PML-N or any other party or person.
Only 6.89 percent ballot papers were printed in general elections while 6.95 percent were printed in 2008 elections, 23.60 percent in 1970, 21.97 percent in 1985, 18.94 percent in 1988, 14.83 percent in 1990, 3.27 percent in 1993, 9.05 percent in 1997 and 7.78 percent additional ballot papers were printed in 2002.
The report said that Balochistan and Sindh provinces lead the list where Form-XV were missing. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 42.5 percent Form XV were missing,12 percent were missing in FATA, 28.8 percent in Punjab, 45.9 percent in Sindh, 48 percent in Balochistan and no Form XV was missing from ICT.
Most of the reports Nadra submitted in respect of 38 constituencies also found that more than 50 percent of the ballots polled could not be verified due to fingerprints of bad quality affixed on counterfoil.
The report said that according to Usman Mobin who was appointed as Chairman Nadra in February 2015 (after the elections) the fact that the thumb impression could not be verified did not mean that it was an invalid vote. In his view there was a 97 percent expectation that it was a valid vote based on the fact that when thumb prints could be verified automatically 97 percent were found to be genuine and thus there was the same statistical expectation. Such unverified votes also had valid NIC names and numbers and were from the same constituency.