Overseas Pakistanis cannot vote in 2018 elections as mock drill fails

ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis living abroad will not be able to vote in the 2018 general elections as a mock exercise carried out by the authorities in four countries failed due to technical and legal reasons, a parliamentary committee has been informed.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has been under pressure from various parties to make arrangements for enabling thousands of Pakistanis living abroad to participate in elections.

Both the ECP and National Database Registration Authority ( Nadra) told the committee on Tuesday that voting by overseas Pakistanis would not be possible in the next general elections in 2018, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Citing sources, the report said Nadra officials, during an in-camera meeting of the subcommittee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, raised a number of questions about the security of its data, if provided for online or offline verification of voters during elections.

The ECP officials informed members of the committee, headed by federal Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid, that the mock exercise it carried out for voting by overseas Pakistanis failed for a number of technical and legal reasons.

Employees at the Pakistani embassy in Riyadh, High Commission in London and consulates in New York, Dubai, Manchester, Bradford and Glasgow were asked to poll their votes for fictitious candidates through postal ballots and telephone voting.

According to sources, the ECP informed the committee that it had set up a special department in the commission on the issue to do research work.

Both the ECP and Nadra also said the system was not ready to use voters' biometric verification and electronic voting machines in the next elections, another major demand to make polling fair and free.