Biometric Verification system will be not available in the upcoming elections in Pakistan due to the unsatisfactory results of Biometric Machines in the NA-120 elections in Lahore.
Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad the Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), announced on 23 September that the electronic voting machines and biometric verification machines would not be used in the general elections in the next year.
According to a report about the sample elections for biometric verification system, almost 12% of the votes out of the total voters could not be verified because of the disability of the machines to read several fingerprints.
So consider if the similar kind of results is obtained in the upcoming general elections then 12 million voters out of 100 million voting population would not be verified through this technology.
And such kind of results would be a huge loophole on ECP’s part that is already showing Pakistan lagging behind in terms of technological advancements.
If we remember the last few years, almost the four years have gone by in protests and political gatherings that were based on the non-acceptance of the rise of ruling party to power and the rigging accusations.
And we experienced a major blow to the strategies of political parties who relied upon the revolution of the voting system.
And at last the failure of the biometric system sets the game where it was started from.
The news is favorable to those who have mastered the ins and outs of the system and are used to the status quo and also rely on the biometric verification machines.
The newly political populace is getting agitated by this lack of modernization in the elections.
But it is also noteworthy that the ECP’s decision is worthwhile and the biometric system will take time to deliver what is required in elections.
This is the lack of planning and commitment that takes Pakistan away from progression in a political setup that’s why ECP fails as an institution to stand its ground and creating necessary accountability.
ECP’s failure to stop parties from arranging political gatherings around NA-120, and Muslim Milli League (MML) still disputing the elections in spite of the ECP’s denial of registration; makes the absence of biometric verification in the upcoming general elections pretty an expected tragedy.
And we can very confidently say that the upcoming general elections are going to be rigid and dissatisfactory for the voters causing a disappointment for the modern populace that is ready to get our of their homes to cast a vote.
