ISLAMABAD, Sept 5 Suspicious voting patterns, ballot stamping by unauthorised people and heavy police presence inside polling stations marked the by-election held on Saturday for a National Assembly seat from Bahawalpur, says a report of a group of independent election monitors released here on Sunday.

The preliminary report, issued by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), an alliance of 30 civil society organisations monitoring elections since 2006, has put the turnout at 42.7 per cent, which is almost similar to the turnout recorded during the 2008 general election.

The NA-184 seat had fallen vacant after resignation of PPP's Malik Aamir Yar Waran following allegations that he held a fake degree. Mr Waran had won the seat in 2008 by securing 59,277 votes when the voter turnout was 42.9 per cent.

Fafen deployed its trained observers to monitor more than 90 per cent of the 226 polling stations set up by the Election Commission of Pakistan in the constituency.

There were 41 polling booths at 33 polling stations where the observers recorded a very high “hourly voting rate”. If the polling is most efficient and each voter is taking approximately a minute and 30 seconds for processing (checking of name, checking of CNIC, issuance of ballot paper, going behind secrecy screen, stamping a ballot and returning of stamp to assistant presiding officer), approximately 45 votes can be cast in an hour at a booth. However, according to the report, there were booths where more than 90 votes were polled in an hour which was not possible in any case.

At 18 polling stations, additional counterfoils had been filled on the ballot books and at 21 polling stations ballot papers were issued without filling the counterfoils, indicating the possibility of “fraudulent votes” being stuffed in ballot boxes.

Similarly, the observers reported from seven polling stations that the number of computerised national identity cards of voters as written on counterfoils of ballot books did not match the corresponding entries on electoral rolls, again raising possibility of fraudulent voting.

The observers reported presence of unauthorised people from 160 observed polling station. At 155 polling stations, security officials were present inside booths and at times appeared to have been in control of the electoral process. Under electoral rules, even at sensitive polling stations police are only authorised to maintain order outside the stations in order to ensure smooth polling. They can enter a polling station or booth only when requested by the presiding officer.

At two polling stations, it says, police officials were observed to have been persuading people to vote for a particular candidate. Similarly, armed civilians were present inside the booths of two polling stations and they were persuading people to vote for a certain candidate. At two polling stations, even a candidate accompanied by armed bodyguards was seen persuading voters.

The observers reported that at 12 polling stations unauthorised persons were stamping ballots on behalf of voters. Instances of breach of right to secret voting were also observed at polling stations where unauthorised persons were going behind the voting screen to help voters.

The observers were stopped from observing the process of voting and counting at some polling stations either by presiding officers or security officials.

The ECP allows its accredited observers to monitor all stages of election, including the opening of polling stations, voting and the counting process. However, the observers as well as some mediapersons reported that election officials under close supervision of security officers were hesitant particularly in opening the counting process for public scrutiny, raising questions about the fairness of the electoral exercise.