ISLAMABAD: The Election Comm­ission of Pakistan (ECP) on Sunday started the process of door-to-door verification of voters to give the list a final shape before the next general elections.

The verification process will be completed by December 6 to enable the ECP to timely prepare “transparent and error-free voters’ list” for the use in the 2023 elections.

According to sources, the ECP has made a plan with a timeline for the preparation of the voters’ list as the elections are now less than two years away.

After completing the verification process, the ECP will start data entry for which it has set a deadline of January 5, 2022. Then it will send the preliminary voter lists to the district election commissions after their printing by the National Database and Registration Authority.

The process will be completed by Dec 6

The ECP will then put these voter lists on display and invite “claims, objections and applications” for corrections on January 26, 2022 and the citizens will be asked to submit their claims or objections by February 24 next year.

The revising authorities will then be given 45 days for disposal of the claims and objections. During this period, the ECP will start a media campaign for the awareness of the voters and the monitoring of the display period will continue till March 11, 2022. The commission has allocated 20 days for the printing of the final electoral rolls which will be published on April 13, 2022.

The ECP had on November 5 released the data of the existing voters’ list containing the names of 121 million voters, showing that the proportion of voters below the age of 35 years is as high as 45.84 per cent, placing them in a position where their active participation has the potential of tilting scales in favour of the candidates of their choice in several constituencies.

Of the total 121m voters, 55.57m are in the age bracket of 18 to 35 years, whereas their number was slightly above 46m (43.82pc) in the 2018 general elections. Among these young voters (45.84pc), 31.98m or 26.38pc are in the age group of 26 to 35 years, while as many as 23.58m or 19.46pc individuals are aged between 18 and 25 years.

The country has 17.27m (14.25pc) voters, aged between 46 and 55 years. They comprise 9.16m male and 8.11m female voters. In the age bracket of 56 to 65 years, there are 10.98m (9.06pc) — 5.76m male and 5.20m female voters.

Similarly, those above 65 years include 6.07m male and 5.92m female voters, putting a total of 12m (9.90pc) in this category.

The ECP on Sunday announced that it had made all the arrangements for holding the local government elections in 17 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as per already announced schedule.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2021