Talking to APP, the official said the service will help the general public to check the status of their vote conveniently anytime and from anywhere from across Pakistan.
The service will be started in February immediately after the completion of Preliminary Electoral Rolls (PER). The people will be able to verify their vote registration and particulars in the voter’s lists through SMS by paying just Rs2 per SMS to ECP.
It may be mentioned here that the people who opt to verify their names in the voters list through Nadra will have to pay Rs10 plus tax for each SMS.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) have already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the telecom sector, he said.
A sender will send his CNIC number to a short code and will subsequently receive a message in Urdu. It will confirm registration of voter as well as location (electoral area) where voter is registered along with serial number of voter in electoral rolls, he said.
He said after the introduction of the new service, it would be the responsibility of every eligible voter to make sure that his/her vote had been registered and furthermore to report any discrepancy to the ECP.
The ECP will set up more than 55,000 display centres countrywide possibly by second or third week of January, where PERs will be physically displayed but introduction of SMS service is expected to spike genuine public interest in electoral process.
According to Secretary ECP Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, the SMS service will be a great convenience to the citizens, enabling them to check their vote status through e-governance using state-of-the art technologies for the first time in the world.
The secretary also appreciated the cooperation offered by Ufone, Warid and Telenor in this effort leading towards free and fair elections in the country.
All the stakeholders, especially the political parties, have appreciated this facility and endorsed the efforts of ECP for ensuring credible elections in the country, he said.
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Quelle/Source: The News International, 05.01.2012
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