ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has said that the names of 2.9 million voters who have died have been deleted so far from the electoral rolls who were in the list when the last elections were held in 2013.

The ECP has sought the role of families of deceased persons to immediately report to the district election commission for deletions.

Referring to media reports about the presence of the names of over three million dead voters in the electoral rolls, the ECP said in a statement that primarily it was the responsibility of family members of an expired person to report to the concerned union council or municipal corporation and get deleted his or her name from the electoral rolls.

Likewise, the Election Commission maintained that it was also the responsibility of the concerned official of the union council or municipal corporation to get enlisted the name of deceased at the Nadra registration centre. Moreover, the details should also be shared with the district election commissions.

“Once, the Election Commission receives a report of death of a voter from the union council, municipal corporation or Nadra, his or her name is immediately removed from the electoral rolls,” the Election Commission maintained.

It pointed out that already names of 2.9 million dead persons had been removed from the electoral rolls and the review of electoral rolls was being initiated again shortly.

Therefore, the report of death of a person should be shared with the concerned district election commission in order to getting his or her name removed from the electoral rolls.

Meanwhile, the Election commission waits for adoption of the 24th constitutional amendment from parliament, which will pave way for it to carry out delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional national census data.

“Yes, we are awaiting the desired legislation to kick start the next phase of our preparations for the next general election and of course to delimit the constituencies,” a senior official at the Election Commission said.

He maintained that if parliament delayed the legislation for another few weeks, this would not only delay the nation-wide exercise of delimitation of constituencies but also the conduct of general election next year.

Internews