ISLAMABAD: The Ele­ction Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has asked the Punjab government to amend the law to do away with the requirement of using electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the upcoming local government polls in the province, it emerged on Thursday.

An ECP official confir­m­­ed that the commission had recently written letters to the Punjab chief secretary and the Punjab local government and community de­­­velopment department secretary to this effect.

The ECP noted that as per the governm­ent’s req­uirem­e­n­­ts, these machines would have to be indigenously pro­­duced, wherein no competitive process wou­­ld be required.

More­over, the ECP said that given the size of the exercise in Punjab, the ECP would need appro­ximately 205,000 EVMs for local government (LG) elections in Punjab.

Read more: Bills to scrap EVM, clip NAB wings sail through NA

Terming LG elections a complex exercise needing handling of multiple ballots while most machines can handle only a single ballot, the ECP said that to conduct elections using EVMs in the constitutionally-stipulated time of 120 days, it would have to purchase machines from the market.

Chief Election Com­mi­s­sioner Sikandar Sultan Ra­ja had, during a hearing last month, termed the Pu­­n­jab government’s move to conduct LG polls through EVMs “a stunt meant to drag feet on the already de­­layed electoral exercise”.

During the hearing, Pu­­n­jab Chief Secretary Abd­ullah Khan Sumbal said the Punjab Assembly had passed a bill to conduct the polls using EVMs and it would become a law in the next 10 days. “You have intentionally added EVMs to create problems,” CEC Raja told Mr Sumbal.

Also read: ECP forms three panels to enforce EVM legislation

Sources said the Punjab local government department had endorsed the ECP’s suggestion to remove the requirement of using EVMs in the upcoming LG elections.

Now a summary will be sent to the Punjab Chief Mi­­nister for approval, after which a draft bill will be introduced in the provincial assembly for voting amendments to the law on EVMs. The ECP has warned against the use of technology, including EVMs, in haste.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2022