PAKISTAN has the seventh largest voters’ registry in the world. The Election Commission of Pakistan, which updates this registry regularly, deserves praise for managing the task. In fact, the ECP recently announced that it would revise and update the electoral rolls through a series of steps between August and October.

According to the plan, the ECP enumerators will conduct a door-to-door verification of voters between Aug 10 and 29, which will be followed by a display of preliminary electoral lists for 21 days starting Sept 20. During this period, voter list display centres will be established across the country where citizens can register themselves, transfer their vote from one place to another, correct their credentials if required and raise objections to voters who may not be residents of a certain area.

This provides citizens, political parties and the ECP with a golden opportunity to rectify the issues in the electoral rolls ahead of the 2018 general election. Although exhaustive and largely accurate, the electoral rolls are not free from flaws and are not complete.

Although largely accurate, the electoral rolls are not free from flaws.

According to the Pakistan Economic Survey (2015-16), the country’s population stands at 195.4 million. Voter registry on March 3, 2016 shows 93.07m — 52.36m males and 40.71m females. This means 47.63 per cent of citizens in the country are registered on the electoral rolls. The ECP expects another five million to be added to the electoral rolls during the upcoming revision exercise, bringing up citizens’ registration to nearly 50pc of the entire population. However, even this increase will leave out many citizens eligible to register as voters, as according to the Pakistan Economic Survey the population over 18 years, ie those who can vote, falls between 105m and 110m. This range is substantiated by other population estimates. Proactive and targeted measures are necessary to identify pockets of population that may still be out of the registration loop.

Much of the voter deficit is due to the under-registration of women — there is a difference of 11.66m between registered male and female voters, the women being fewer in number. This matter needs to be given particular attention by the ECP that should work in close coordination with Nadra as the women who are missing from the voters’ lists might also not be registered as CNIC holders. If this deficit alone is bridged, voter registration will increase to nearly 104m from the existing 93.07m.

Particular emphasis on women’s registration is required keeping in view the declining ratio of male and female voters, which does not bode well for the quality of the electoral rolls to be used for the 2018 general election. In the 2002 general election, voters’ ratio was 86 women per 100 men. In 2008, the ratio decreased to 79 women per 100 men. In 2013, it further decreased to 77 women per 100 men. Now the ratio has slightly improved as compared to what it was in 2013, to 78 women per 100 men.

On the other hand, the ratio was as high as 87 women per 100 men in 1970 and 1988. According to the demographic profile of the Pakistani population as per the 1998 census, this ratio must ideally be 96 women per 100 men. Alongside women, citizens in the 18-25 age group need to be particularly targeted as their under-registration is proportionately higher as compared to other age groups.

Another area that the ECP needs to focus on is the registration of citizens in constituencies of their residence. Citizens must be registered at a place of their choice in line with the requirements of the Electoral Rolls Act 1974. According to a FAFEN study in 2012, more than 13pc voters were registered in places where they did not reside. This was essentially the work of Nadra before the 2013 general election that allocated voters, who could not be verified at their residences by the ECP enumerators, their permanent addresses.

According to media reports, the ECP could not verify 30pc of voters at that time due to pressure by the judiciary to finalise the electoral lists despite pleas that the door-to-door verification exercise was not complete. The electoral rolls had to be finalised under deadlines given by the apex court, leaving flaws that could have been fixed had more time been given to the ECP as was also demanded by Sindh, KP and Balochistan through assembly resolutions. The fixing of electoral rolls was, however, done only in Karachi under the supervision of the army, where a substantial number of Pashto-speaking citizens residing in the city for generations were allocated their permanent addresses in KP.

Recently, in some by-elections, reports of arbitrary transfer of voters from the constituency of their residence to another place also came to light. The reports were scandalous as such transfers can only be made by the ECP on the request of the voters concerned. But, according to media reports, the transfers were made by Nadra, which, if true, was an encroachment on the ECP’s authority. The ECP must also address such matters through the ongoing exercise.

While ECP is expected to address these issues, legal measures are nevertheless required to simplify voter registration. One measure may be to restrict the registration of vote to the permanent or temporary address on the CNIC. When a citizen registers for a CNIC, Nadra should ask for the citizen’s consent to be registered as a voter and his/her preferred address for the electoral list. This will not only absolve ECP of verifying each and every voter before registering but also ensure continuous revision of voter lists.

Unless administrative and legal instruments work in tandem, vexing issues related to the electoral rolls will continue to persist, leading to the disenfranchisement of many citizens.

The writer works with the Free and Fair Election Network.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2016