Election 2024: PPP expresses reservations over result transmission system

ISLAMABAD: With only 11 days left in the general elections 2024, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) expressed reservations over the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) Election Management System (EMS) – being used to transmit and tabulate results, ARY News reported on Sunday citing sources.

Sources told ARY News that PPP has decided to file application with the election commission to make the result transmission system “transparent”.

Sources quoting PPP claimed that the electoral watchdog wants to introduce an app on result transmission system-style. However, the PPP was of the view that the app may face technical issues.

The PPP suggested that the Presiding Officers should forward the results to Returning Officers on WhatsApp and the same result [Form 45] should be shared with Polling Agents with the messaging platform.

A day earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) successfully conducted a mock exercise of the Election Management System (EMS) on an experimental basis, yielding useful and encouraging results.

An ECP spokesperson said that presiding officers, on the whole, managed to deliver results satisfactorily. However, connectivity challenges at certain points during the exercise caused minor issues in transmitting results to some presiding officers. “These challenges are being promptly addressed.”

A comprehensive trial was initiated, involving the participation of returning officers’ offices at 859 locations nationwide, he said, adding that this comprehensive test encompassed Fiber/DSL connectivity, EMS app log-in, usage, and the steps for results transmission and editing.

It effectively accomplished the transmission of results by presiding officers and the compilation of results by ROs through EMS.

It’s noteworthy that the primary goal of EMS is to compile and tabulate results at the RO level. Throughout this exercise, all ROs completed the compilation and tabulation of results without encountering any issues.

If a presiding officer encounters difficulty in transmitting results to the RO via mobile phone, they are instructed to personally deliver the election results to the RO’s office.