Govt decides giving i-voting right to overseas Pakistanis

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has stepped forward for providing the voting right to the overseas Pakistanis during elections and decided to allow the nationals to participate in polling process by voting through internet, ARY News reported on Monday.

The progress was made in an important meeting held today which was attended by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfiqar Bukhari, PM’s adviser on parliamentary affairs Babar Awan, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and the officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The federal government has decided to give internet-voting (i-voting) right to the nationals living in foreign countries.

It emerged that the participants of the meeting have given approval to the bio-metric and i-voting procedures after reviewing its practical demonstration.

It is also decided to take further steps of initiating a debate on internet-voting right to overseas Pakistanis based on ECP reports in the Parliament.

Zulfiqar Bukhari said that the present government is going to fulfil the longstanding demand of the overseas Pakistanis. The i-voting procedure will be made very easy to give the overseas nationals the right to take part in elections in accordance with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The special assistant added that the past governments had neglected the matters related to giving chance to overseas nationals to participate in the polling. He also announced that the present government will also include the overseas Pakistanis in the decision-making process.