Pakistan begins door-to-door voter verification drive for 2023 elections

Islamabad: To improve election transparency, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has initiated a month-long door-to-door drive to verify the data of registered voters.

The verification process that began on November 7 and would continue till December 6 is aimed at achieving transparency and accuracy in the upcoming general elections in 2023. The second phase of verification of voters would commence from January 26 next year. All provincial election commissioners would oversee the revision of electoral rolls in their respective provinces.

After completing the verification process, the preliminary voter lists would be put on display for public review and corrections in late January 2022. The public can also register their complaints for corrections in the list, transfer their votes to a permanent or temporary address on their national ID cards. During this period, a media campaign would also be launched for the awareness of the voters and the monitoring of the display period will continue till March 2022.

The election commission has asked voters to check their registration status on voters’ lists by sending a text with their national identity card number to 8300.

There are around 121 million registered voters in Pakistan, according to ECP data. Young Pakistanis could play a major role in 2023 general polls as 55.57 million or 46 per cent of the total voters include those aged 18 to 35 years.

Pakistan has also announced to conduct the first digital census in 2023 before the next general elections. The country has also introduced locally-made electronic voting machines for the next general elections to ensure transparency.