15 million voters still missing from final list: Fafen

Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has said that as many as 15 million or 15.65 percent of total eligible voters out of an estimated 87.5 million citizens of voting age - are still missing from the final voters list of the Election Commission of Pakistan.
The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), a coalition of 30 Pakistani civil society organisations, was established in 2006 to observe the election process, educate voters, and advocate for electoral and democratic reforms.
According to a recent report released by the FAFEN here on Wednesday, is based on a study of the Final Election Roll (FER) posted on the website of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Secretary General FAFEN, Sarwar Bari said at a press conference that from June 13 to 18, 2007, the network conducted a statistically valid audit of the 2007 draft electoral roll, which revealed that the draft list, although incomplete (missing millions of voters), was generally accurate (the names on the draft roll were listed correctly and represented real eligible voters).
He said that according to the follow up studies conducted during the current month, as many as 15 million voters (15.65 percent) of an estimated 87.5 million citizens of voting age) are still be missing from the Final Electoral Roll and 7.5 million voters on the FER (9.3 percent of 81 million records) may be listed more than once.
Whereas 1.26 million CNIC numbers (1.55 percent of 81 million FER records) may be listed more than once. He said that FAFEN’s June 2007 study included a ‘People-to-List’ audit that found eligible voters in their homes and checked their names on the draft electoral roll and almost 27 percent of households were found to be missing on the draft electoral rolls.
In the February 2008 follow-up study, the CNIC numbers of 6,721 eligible voters from the ‘People-to-List’ audit were checked on the ECP Internet database and more than 17 percent of eligible voters were found still missing from the Final Electoral Roll, he maintained.
According to the FAFEN report, 1,186 voters or 17.65 per cent are missing of the total 6,721 randomly selected voters from across the country. It adds that out of total 3,935 voters in Punjab, 653 are missing from the voter lists.

In NWFP, 142 are missing out of randomly selected data of 923 eligible voters. Accordingly, 337 voters are missing from the randomly collected dada of 1,594 eligible voters from Sindh and 46 were missing from the randomly collected data of 231 voters from Balochistan.
However, Bari said that it is possible that some of these eligible voters have been added to the FER ‘Supplemental List’, which includes names added by the ECP from the 2002 voters’ list.
He opined that these added voters might be listed only with their NIC numbers or without any identification number at all. Nevertheless, FAFEN’s follow-up study of the voters’ list indicates that there are still many eligible voters who have been left off the Final Electoral Roll, he opined.
The results show that the FER 2008 includes at least 9.3 percent duplicate records (with 4.17 percent of names or CNIC numbers listed at least more than once). Out of a total of 82 million records on the final voters’ list, as many as 7.5 million are estimated to be duplicates.
FAFEN reports also claimed that the percentage of duplicate CNIC records (same CNIC number issued to more than one person) on the ECP database was found by its follow-up study to be 1.55 percent, or as many as 1.26 million records out of a total of 81 million on the Final Electoral Roll