LAHORE – Pakistan general elections will be taking place on February 8 Thursday, and the stage is set for over 128 million voters who will exercise the right to pick their representatives for next five years.
Rigging during the polling process is what Pakistanis are aware of, while technical glitches also makes it difficult for some voters to cast their vote.
In past many people lamented an unwanted situation as their vote has already been cast by someone else. For 2024 polls, Election Commission made a special provision for this scenario to make sure no one is deprived of their right to vote.
ECP dedicates Section 77 of the Election Rules 2017 to ‘Tendered votes’, these votes are those which are already cast by voters name.
If your vote has already been taken, stamped and cast into a box, and you do not have an identity mark on your thumb, you can go to tendered ballot paper.
In this case, a Presiding Officer will get your thumb impression and signature on Form-43, and you will be allowed to stamp your ballot paper.
For the special exercise, the officer will take your vote and put it in different envelope for tendered votes.
Election crew will also locate the fake vote issued by your name using biometric and action will also be started against the person.
It should be noted that tendered votes will be counted separately and then returned to their separate bag after the count. A separate column is created in Form-45 to present the tally of tendered votes, thereby indicating the impact of these votes on the overall count for each constituency.
