ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy on Monday sent a letter to the diplomats of major countries based in Islamabad, highlighting flaws in the ongoing process of voters’ registration and asking them to take up the matter with the Election Commission of Pakistan and the project financers to help ensure free and fair polls.

“The Musharraf military dictatorship’s project of computerisation of electoral rolls in collaboration with the National Database and Registration Authority and the ECP leaves alarming concerns regarding transparency of the exercise and ultimately of the general elections,” writes ARD deputy information secretary Munir Ahmad Khan in the letter.

The ARD office-bearer has sent the letter to US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, UK High Commissioner Robert Brinkley, Canadian High Commissioner David B. Collins, acting EU Ambassador Balthasar Benz and ambassadors of France, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, Japan, and Spain, besides some other countries.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Dawn, says the ECP is refusing to register citizens without computerised national identity cards. It says almost 20 million eligible voters do not have identity cards and cannot be registered which means that 30 per cent of the total voters are effectively being disenfranchised.

It says the computer system permits multiple data entry points which “makes it easier for concerned government departments to have multiple teams hacking through any of the modes or multiple data entry points to change the electoral data, add fictitious names or delete actual names or to finally change the electoral results.”

Mr Khan suggests that political parties should be allowed to verify the voters’ list. Political parties should be informed about security measures to be taken by the ECP to check hacking of the data.

The hackers, who can be “government-sponsored or intelligence agencies,” having sympathies for extremists, can even add in ghost polling stations and a large number of data can be reduced to manageable size. “This is why the opposition parties are calling for a single data entry point as well as calling for representatives of the political parties as well as election observer teams being present to monitor the process,” he states.

“Given the fact that entire electoral process for the forthcoming election hinges sharply on the computerisation of the electoral rolls, we maintain that there can be no transparent registration unless political parties and election observers are given an equal opportunity to monitor the development of these rolls at all stages,” says the letter, adding: “We view with alarm the award of the contract to a consortium of three companies, the main and technical component of which is ‘Expert Systems,’ headed by a relative of the Punjab chief minister.

The public will view this as tantamount to allow the ruling Chaudhrys of Gujrat with their backers to influence the electoral rolls and results above the head of the ECP as they will have all the firewalls and passwords in the possession of their relatives.”

The opposition believes that the computerisation of electoral rolls must be above suspicion and this award by the ECP indicates a serious conflict of interests that can inevitably damage the electoral process beyond repair in a bid to give life to a ruling clique whom the people wish to vote out in the next elections.

“We urge the democratic world to bring up these concerns with the ECP and the funding authorities for fresh tendering of the contract to parties not connected to the leading contenders for power and for reforms outlined by us so that the people of Pakistan can hope to bring change through peaceful means,” the letter concludes.