Biometric system technically unreliable, says ECP
ECP has declared the elections held under biometric system as impracticable due to unreliability
ISLAMABAD: (Dunya News) – Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has on Tuesday declared the biometric system as unreliable and said that the elections under biometric system are impracticable, reported Dunya News.
Many political parties including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had demanded holding elections under biometric system. The ECP issued directions to NADRA in this regard but when experimented with the system in Haripur, it proved to be a failure. NADRA informed ECP that it is unable to verify millions of votes in one day.
Talking on the subject to the journalists, Secretary ECP said that general elections or by-elections are not possible under biometric system as yet. He said that the entire world is returning to the manual system from the biometric system. Secretary ECP further said that free and fair election is possible only when the political parties express complete faith in the ECP and the staff is properly trained.
Also read: Biometric polling in Haripur by-election, 54% impressions unverified
Haripur by-election under biometric system:
According to the report issued by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 60 biometric machines were used on 30 polling stations of NA-19 in the by-election and 15,723 out 37,924 people voted with the help of biometric machines.
Biometric system failed to identify 54% of the thumb impressions and succeeded in ready 46% only. The report says that the biggest reason for the votes not being verified was that NADRA system didn’t have complete record while many identity cards had been blocked in NADRA’s system. Moreover, thumb-impressions of many of the voters were light and thus not readable.
ECP has decided to continue testing biometric system in the future elections.
