ECP ponders over EVMs, voting of expats

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja Thursday said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) appreciates the use of technology in the election process, but the quality of security must be taken into account and extreme caution was required to ensuring transparency, fairness and impartiality in elections.

He was presiding over an ECP meeting on giving the overseas Pakistanis right to vote, and the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) here at the ECP Secretariat. ECP members, secretary and senior officers attended the meeting. The meeting reviewed an ordinance issued on May 8, 2021 regarding voting right to overseas Pakistanis and the use of EVMs in the general election.

The government placed an electronic voting machine at the Parliament House a day earlier and the media was given briefing on its use. The ECP said that in order to give the vote right to overseas Pakistanis, the Election Commission had carried out pilot projects, and a report in that regard had been submitted to the federal government in December 2018. The government had asked the Ministry of Information Technology to conduct an audit. which assigned the task to a Spanish firm (Minsait) to submit the audit report till May 31, 2021.