Recommendations to the Election Commission of Pakistan from Political Parties

While noting that some progress has been made, the parties expressed their concerns about the process of updating the voters' list by the Election Commission of Pakistan after the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Specifically, there is concern that up to 20 to 30 million new voters may be added to the 2007 list from the 2002 list without confirming they are genuine. In addition, no additional measures have been taken to register the millions of first-time voters who turned 18 after 2002 but have not yet been registered. The following specific recommendations were made in order to help ensure that the final voters list is accurate and complete. 

1. Election Commission should invite all parties for broad based consultations about the whole process;

2. The correctness of newly added names should be checked with the NADRA database before declaring the lists f1nal;

3. Door to door enumeration Should take place for those voters from the 2002 list who don't have a NIC and aren’t on the NADRA database;

4. NADRA mobile teams should be deployed rapidly to voters without ID cards and the fee for a NADRA card should be waived;

5. Lists should be reopened for filing objections and claims about additions and deletions before being dec1ared final;

6. Process for getting registered after the declaration of the final list should be made simple;

7. Electronic copies of the lists should be provided to parties and put on the ECP website;

8. Political parties and other monitors should have access to the data entry center;

9. Measures must be taken. for registration of those voters who are displaced in Balochistan after recent floods;

10. Persons who have illegally been registered, such as refugees, should be removed from the list;

11. Polling stations should be announced at the same time as announcement of the election schedule and not changed thereafter.