Voter's Day Celebrated Across KP To Ensure Mass Participation In Elections

Justice (R) Ms Irshad Qaisar, Member ECP, has said that Election Commission of Pakistan is taking concrete steps for ensuring mass participation in the electoral process.

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Dec, 2018 ) :Justice (R) Ms Irshad Qaisar, Member ECP, has said that Election Commission of Pakistan is taking concrete steps for ensuring mass participation in the electoral process.

She was addressing a function in Governor House in connection with celebrations of National Voter's Day. Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the Chief Guest at the occasion.

Provincial Election Commissioner, KP, Pir Maqbool Ahmad, ADG (ECP), Senior Officers of ECP, VC, Benazir Women University, Academicians, students and representatives of all segments of the society also present at the occasion.

Member ECP said that ECP is celebrating 7th December as National Voter's day to highlight the significance of vote and electoral process to ensure maximum public participation. She told that turnout was recorded as almost fifty percent which could be enhanced in future. She informed that ECP is struggling to make at par both the female and male voters as there is difference of 26,00000 between male & female voters in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

She further added that verification process of electoral process was accomplished before 2018 General Elections. Special campaign was launched for registration of female voters with the cooperation of NADRA & Civil Society which is still continued, member ECP maintained.

She appealed the participants to shoulder with ECP in its efforts for registration of this section of the society. In order to increase the voter turnout and include people from all segments of the society, ECP also has taken numerous steps including public awareness through electronic and print media.

She told that Federal Election academy has been set up on permanent basis to impart necessary training to the officers and staff. An independent Monitoring Unit has also been established at ECP under section 234 of the Elections Act, 2017 for monitoring all kinds of elections.

She hoped that effective result whereof would have been observed by all of you during the recently held General Elections.

Ms Irshad Qaisar further stated that formation of District Voters education Committees (DVEC) at district-level to increase public awareness. She also informed that all pollingn stations have been interlinked with GIS and for the first time in the history of Pakistan and every voter got picture of his concerned polling stations besides other information.

Meanwhile Governor KP, in his speech expressed satisfaction over the celebration of voter's day which would have positive impact on masses regarding electoral process. He applauded the steps taken by the ECP for conduct of transparent elections and added that we all must cooperate with ECP in this regard.

Earlier Provincial Election Commissioner KP, Pir Maqbool Ahmad welcoming the participants stated that today is the historic day as first ever general elections were held in 1970, which paved the way for giving the first ever unanimous constitution in the country.

He also told that voter registration has now been made easy with the collaboration of NADRA, which could be verified by sending CNIC number to 8300. Keeping in view the difficulties of the people with disabilities ECP as per Elections Act, 2017, introduced the facility of postal ballot papers in the General Elections 2018.

The function concluded with awareness walk under the leadership of Governor KP.

Such like functions, awareness walks, seminars and debate competitions were also conducted in all districts of KP under the supervision of District/Regional Election commissioners.

One such function was also held in Islamia College Peshawar attended by teachers and students under the supervision of District Election Commissioner Peshawar. Besides, a function was also organized in FAST University, graced by the Provincial Election Commissioner, KP.

A function was also arranged in Sarhad University for Science& Technology Peshawar in which Deputy Director Khushal Zada, Syed ZahoorShah represented ECP.