Politics of electoral rolls

If the Supreme Court advice is acted upon and haste is shown, the electoral rolls will not be accurate hence not fair

The call for early elections has picked up momentum in the political landscape of Pakistan. Most of the political parties have virtually gone into election gear, holding big rallies to demonstrate their strength and number for elections. However, timetable for early elections is yet to be decided. Finalization of electoral rolls is at the heart of it. The Elections Commission of Pakistan (ECP) wants time for updating of electoral rolls while the Supreme Court wants it to be ready by the end of February.

The preparation and updating electoral rolls is a constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission and is in the process of updating. Some of the stakeholders have challenged the validity of the electoral rolls in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it is not valid and complete and it has multiple errors. This approach has developed an impression in the political and electoral circles that such kind of moves are made to call the legitimacy of present parliament into questions because 2008 elections were held on the same voter list. However, electoral expert differ with the approach and view updated electoral rolls as precondition for credible elections that require proper facilitation and fairness from all the stakeholders, on this point of time. So, we need to know how the process of electoral rolls is being observed in Pakistan when elections before schedule seem very likely.

Presently, the voter list has drawn much attention and become a subject of litigation, TV talk shows and print media. Ironically, in most of these discussions and discourses, the voter list was treated as an administrative and political issue. Hence, in the opinion of electoral analysts it is technical task based upon legal process to complete well before forthcoming elections. Further, the element of haste was perceived when the Supreme Court issued an order to Election Commission in the Imran Khan vs Election Commission to finalize voter list by 23^rd February 2012. In response the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), on 23^rd January, held a consultative meeting with 15 political parties to share the due process required for update of electoral rolls and sought their approval. The CEC said that commission cannot finalise the electoral rolls by 23^rd February. “If electoral rolls were not finalized as per the law, it will be held against constitution,” was his verdict. The ECP will be able to produce final electoral list by the end of May.

Producing updated electoral rolls for world’s sixth largest country has become a challenging task for the Election Management Body (EMB) since 2007 following Benazir Bhutto vs Election Commission. The 2007 voter list contained almost 51 million voters based upon Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) and having less number of voters than previous voter list. The issue of lesser number gave an impression of the exclusion of voters. Upon this the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to add the rest of the votes from 2002 voters’ list to the voters’ list of 2007. The 2002 electoral rolls had voters with old National Identity Cards (CNICs). As a result, a supplementary list was produced which was mixture of both. It becomes very difficult   for the Election Commission to verify the supplementary list in a very limited time given by the Supreme Court. Many anamolies in the list appeared due to inclusion of voters with old identity cards. It was not possible to remove them in a short span of time. The likelihood of multiple voters and bogus was very high in case of the old identity cards. Later   on, retaining voters with old identity cards became a big challenge for revision process. Meanwhile, parliament made CNIC as mandatory for voter registration and casting.

This act of parliament was widely appreciated and held as milestone in the electoral reforms by electoral experts because it was in line with international standards. Even, the 2008 EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) recommended that ECP should produce accurate and complete electoral roll based on the NADRA’s data. In most of the developed democracies EMBs produce accurate and computerized voters’ list with the help of civil registration authorities’ data. The ECP has started working on the same line by using the data of NADRA. However, placing the entire data in 140000 census blocs is a technical and time consuming   task facing the ECP.

So, according to electoral experts, Election Commission will not be able to meet the deadline of 23^rd February because process needs legal and technical requirements. The ECP has not yet received preliminary list of 80 million voters from NADRA. As per process the preliminary lists are displayed in display centers for 21 days. For this purpose 40000 to 50000 display centers are said to be set up. In the display process primary stakeholders: political parties, voters and civil society-bodies are invited to point out errors and complaints for corrections. The final list is produced after the correction of errors.

If the ECP in compliance with Supreme Court Order, skips the display process, the voters are not allowed to see the list whether their data is correctly entered or not, then the ongoing voter list will not be error-free. The voters with incorrect data may not be able to exercise their fundamental right to vote on the pretext of minor mistake on polling day. If the Supreme Court advice is acted upon and haste is shown in preparing the lists, the electoral rolls will not be accurate hence not fair.