LAHORE – The Election Commission will get the vote registration system into its domain after the completion of local bodies’ elections process from Nadra, officials of the Commission told The Nation today.

Admitting minor flaws in the data entry software and system of Nadra concerning the vote registration, the election authorities said, “A proposal will soon be sent to the government for transferring the software of vote registration to the Election Commission soon after the completion of local bodies’ polls.”

Opposition political parties especially the PTI has been making hue and cry over the vote transfer issue during the famous NA-122 by-polls, the constituency which reelected the Speaker National Assembly with a narrow margin.

PTI Punjab organizer Chaudhry Sarwar claimed: “PTI thinks pre-poll rigging was made by the ruling party in the by-polls of NA-122 by vote transfer without informing the voter. We are collecting evidence to build a solid case.”

“Transferring of vote without informing the voter is a crime under the law of the country,” he added.

However the election officials maintained they could not register a single vote bypassing the process of vote transfer.

“Votes cannot be transferred to any other constituency without proper application, evidence of change of residence and employment trade,” the officials insisted.

Imran Khan party’s candidate for NA-122 had submitted an application in Election Commission for the complete details of the voters’ lists and claimed he would prove large scale rigging in the by-election after getting the lists.

But the ruling party leaders alleged Mr Khan’s candidate lost the by-poll for NA-122 despite the fact his election managers bought the votes ranging from Rs 3000 to Rs 5000. The PTI countering the allegation said the ruling party started development programmes during the by-election campaign, which is tantamount to pre-poll rigging.

Election officials said the software for voters registration which hopefully would come in the domain of the election authority after the local bodies’ polls would take the responsibility of any error after bringing the voter registration system under its control.

At the moment the Commission sends the forms for voters’ registration to Nadra which after verifying voters’ national identity cards details register his/her vote and send back the information to the election authorities.

“The Commission will hire data entry operators soon it gets the confirmation of voters’ registration software under its authority and 2018 general elections will be held following the flawless voters’ lists,” they claimed.

The District Election Commissions have the access to main frame of the software at the Election Commission office for automatically feeding the information of new voters and any other change for a voter, said the election officials.

They proposed to the PTI to bring the name and CNIC number of the voters who claimed their votes had been transferred without their consent.

The election authorities through a drive on electronic and print media informed the public to check their votes in the voting lists displayed at the offices of registration officers of their area. They could also check online or by sending their CNIC on the ECP SMS Service ‘8300’ and if their votes were registered at a wrong place, they could get it corrected by providing relevant documents and evidences to the registration authority Nadra through their respective election offices.