ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and National Database And regulatory Authority (NADRA) have told parliamentary committee that it is not possible to provide the facility of voting to overseas Pakistanis, use of electronic voting machine and biometric authentication for general elections of 2018.
According to sources, NADRA officials have raised questions concerning its database security in case of online or offline authentication of voters during the election in sub-committee of parliamentary committee for electoral reforms.
According to sources, ECP officials told the members in the presence of Zahid Hamid, federal minister for climate change, the head of the committee that the mock efforts being made in 4 foreign countries t facilitate overseas Pakistani for voting were foiled due to numerous technical and legal reasons.
ECP officials told the committee that mock voting was carried out in 7 embassies, high commissions and consulates in order to provide facility of voting in foreign country in which the only employees who were on foreign mission were asked to vote to fictitious candidates through telephone voting and postal ballot.
The sources told that not a single vote was cast through telephone whereas the votes cast through postal ballot were received by ECP office in Islamabad after 6 to 14 days late.