FEDERAL Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday approved the purchase of four thousand Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for use in the upcoming Local Government (LG) elections in the federal capital.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told the media that the voting machines will also be procured for the LG polls in Punjab.
Heavy responsibility now rests with the Ministry of Science and Technology to procure the EVMs as per the requirement and directions of the Election Commission of Pakistan to avoid any further controversy.
The process must be completed at the earliest and in the most transparent manner. The ECP really deserves appreciation for carrying out a detailed analysis over the use of EVMs and for this purpose also constituted technical committees.
The Commission has gone to the extent that tendering is not vendor specific and a third party testing is carried out to ascertain if the machines could be used for conducting free and fair elections.
Since some local prototype of EVMs have also been prepared and put on display at the Parliament House, these should also be considered and if found feasible should be given priority as these will prove to be cost effective.
Since a lot of money will be spent on the procurement of EVMs, customized and secured warehouses should also be established to store these machines and most importantly, the ECP must make timely arrangements to ensure proper training of the election staff to handle these machines.
The use of EVMs in the local government elections will be a good exercise before using them in the general elections as it will help address and offset a lot of confusion and uncertainty surrounding, at present, the whole matter.
Always fingers are raised on the credibility and fairness of the election process, and use of technology is important to ensure that the chances of rigging on the Election Day are minimized.
It is also for the political parties to rise above their petty political interests and move towards ensuring free, fair and transparent elections as it is the only way through which we can further flourish democratic norms and take forward the country.
