88% of Biometric Cast Votes in NA-120 Are Now Verified

In an effort to reduce the claims of false votes and rigging, the Election Commission of Pakistan has installed 100 biometric machines at 39 polling stations in constituency NA-120 as a pilot project.

These machines were installed for the first time in Pakistan’s history. Their main purpose was to verify the election results and replace the older manual polling system.

The Prime Minister’s seat was vacant after Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.

Out of about 27300, over 24,000 votes were verified through the newly introduced biometric machines making this project a success. The other 12% of the votes which could not be verified due to the limited data provided by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

Popular With The Voters

22 year old Murtaza from Lyton road said,

Now it is a digital world and people are using the latest gadgets to fulfill their needs. I don’t like the manual way of voting.

As this was the first time biometric machines were used, voters especially elder women were surprised. 56 year old Ayesha from Mozang said that this was the first time in her life that she had used this machine. She added,

I’m happy. Perhaps these machines can help us address rigging and other issues like missing records

No Hitches or Problems

On conclusion of the election process, all biometric machines were shifted to the Punjab Election Commission’s office. Talking to a local newspaper, the ECP spokesperson said,

Overall performance of the Biometric Voting Machines (BVMs) is satisfactory, based on the rating. Almost all voters got biometric verification done at these BVMs after the polling cycle as per approved SOPs.

No hindrance occurred throughout the day and voters were excited to get involved in the biometric process.

He said the detailed report about the biometric system would be submitted to the concerned authorities for approval.

Source: The Nation