Senate panel for voting rights to overseas Pakistanis

ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms headed by Dr Arif Alvi on Monday approved the unified electoral laws that would now be presented to the Parliamentary Committee today (Tuesday).

The sub-committee met here on Monday. The meeting was presided over by the Committee Chairman Minister for Law Zahid Hamid. The unified electoral laws package comprised of three parts: one relates to electoral laws, second to amendments in rules and third relates to constitutional amendments that are needed for the electoral reforms package.

During the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee scheduled to be held today (Tuesday), a demonstration of voting through electronic bio-metric voting machines will also be made and after that the committee would decide the future of electronic voting for the next general elections.

In the meanwhile, in another meeting the sub-committee mulled over voting rights for overseas Pakistanis and approved the proposal for giving the right of vote to overseas Pakistanis. Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Dr Arif Alvi said the Nadra has forwarded the proposal for facilitation of online voting for overseas Pakistanis.

“As per recommendation, the new overseas identity card and passport holders of Pakistan will register themselves as a voters with Election Commission of Pakistan and after that the ECP will give a secret code to new overseas identity card and passport holders of Pakistan and they would be able to cast their vote online through their personal secret code,” he added.

He said the facilitation of online voting will be provided to 8 million new overseas identity card and passport holders of Pakistan. “The proposal of giving rights to overseas Pakistan now would be presented to the Parliamentary Committee for final approval,” he told the newsmen.