ISLAMABAD – Only three out of 4,667 Overseas Pakistanis eligible to vote have registered for the i-voting system introduced by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
The trio registered their votes for Lahore’s upcoming by-elections on PP-168 seat to the dismay of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and National Database and Registration Authority’s (Nadra) officials; the deadline for registration has now lapsed.
The PP-168 constituency has voters based in 10 countries, however, the lack of interest of Pakistani diaspora has baffled pollsters.
The constituency is set to be a part of the second experiment of the facility; the first test of the i-voting service was conducted during October 14 by-elections though the interst of expatriates was equally poor.
Of the 632,000 Overseas Pakistanis eligible to vote then, only 7,419 had registered to cast their ballot.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had launched a new online voting system in August for Pakistanis residing out of the country in collaboration with National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
The Pakistani nationals in other countries were able to cast their vote through machine-readable passports. Only those Pakistanis with a machine-readable passport (MRP) and a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) could register.
The Supreme Court had On August 17 allowed Pakistanis living abroad to vote in by-elections.
Chief Justice Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had remarked that Overseas Pakistanis would be participating in the by-election through i-voting, a system that allows voters to cast ballots from any computer connected to the internet anywhere in the
