KARACHI/JEDDAH: Citing a lack of ballot secrecy for voters as their main concern, independent analysts and members from the opposition parties expressed serious reservations over the i-voting system launched by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday.
According to the ECP, the initiative will enable overseas Pakistani citizens to vote for 11 national and 26 provincial constituencies.
The online resource, which contains video tutorials for prospective voters in English and Urdu, promises to help users “cast their vote online from anywhere in the world using any Internet-connected device”.
The service, from September 1 to September 15, is only for citizens who are already registered voters in Pakistan. Documents such as the National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistani and Machine Readable Passports are a must to register for the service.
Once registered, users will receive a secret code — between October 10 and October 14 — that will be unique to each one of them and enable them to participate in the elections.
“The process seems to have started on the Supreme Court’s directives issued in response to a petition launched by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party,” Dr. Tauseef Ahmed Khan, a Karachi-based analyst, told Arab News on Saturday.
“The PTI will certainly be the top beneficiary of the i-voting system since it is quite popular with Pakistani expats,” Khan said. “But given the ECP’s capacity and the failure of the RTS [Results Transmission System] in the July election, one cannot rule out the possibility that the i-voting system may fall short of expectations,” he added.
Faisal Sabzwari, a Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader, concurs. “The recent failure of the RTS proves that the Election Commission of Pakistan lacks the capacity to operate election technology efficiently.”
He admitted that the ECP’s decision to set up the portal was “principally right,” though the mechanism raises important doubts in Pakistan’s context. “How will they authenticate the online registration? How will the ECP deal with any fake registration attempts? If the ECP wanted to give overseas Pakistanis the right to vote, it could have done that through our consulates in different cities across the world,” Sabzwari said.
PTI lawmaker Arsalan Taj Ghumman reasoned that the i-voting systems had been “successful globally”, adding that he sees no reason why it cannot be implemented in Pakistan. “We hope this pilot project succeeds as it will make it easier for the country to ensure the participation of overseas Pakistanis in the elections,” he said.
Abdul Jabbar Nasir, a Karachi-based analyst, noted that the exercise was still in its early stages, adding that the ECP had chosen by-polls on 37 seats “to test and implement the system with relative convenience”.
It may be recalled that the Supreme Court had convened a session to give voting rights to overseas Pakistanis on April 12, instructing the ECP to constitute a task force to undertake a technical audit of the i-voting platform.
The ensuing report warned that the i-voting system did not “provide ballot secrecy as required in Clause 94 of the Elections Act, 2017, and Article 226 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”
“We realized that users can easily mount attacks on this system using their web browsers whereby they can cast votes for whichever national and provincial seat they choose, regardless of their constituency. These attacks can be launched with the moderate technical ability and can easily be automated to manipulate votes at a large scale,” parts of the report read.
IT experts observed that there was a “critical shortage of cybersecurity skills and expertise in Pakistan, particularly within the field of election security.” “We would, therefore, urge all stakeholders to exercise extreme caution in approaching the question of Internet voting,” the task force concluded.
Throwing caution to the wind, several overseas Pakistanis said they were happy to finally be a part of the country’s democratic process.
Maroof Butt, a resident of Lahore based in Jeddah, told Arab News that he considers it “a historic moment for overseas Pakistanis and a moment of recognition as well.” He added, “our participation and contribution in the elections will surely make our voice heard.”
Farmanullah Khan, a resident of Mardan working in Dubai, is one among many. Talking to Arab News, Khan — who could not vote in the past three elections – said he is happy to vote for his candidate in PK-53 and would certainly register online to facilitate the process.
Imran Shah, a resident of Clifton Karachi based in Australia, is all geared up. Although the by-polls in his home constituency, NA-247, have not been scheduled yet, he intends to register himself as soon as possible, especially because — if PTI’s Dr. Arif Alvi becomes the country’s next president — NA-247 constituency may soon become vacant. “I don’t want to miss the opportunity of voting, whenever there is a polling process in my constituency.”