BACKGROUND

The subject of grant of right of vote to Overseas Pakistanis remained under

consideration in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) since long. ECP had
established a Directorate for Overseas Voting in its Secretariat at Islamabad. It is
constantly involved in consultation and research on the subject. The consultative
process was not only confined to the local stakeholders i.e. Political Parties, Civil
Society Organizations and Media, but is also extended to the associations of Overseas
Pakistanis.

ECP has been working to devise the mechanism for granting the voting rights to the
Overseas Pakistanis since 2015. In order to develop a workable, effective and
transparent mode of voting for Overseas Pakistanis, the Honourable Election
Commission had constituted a Special Committee on Overseas Voting to conduct the
Feasibility Study of Overseas Voting, In addition to this the ‘Sub-Committee of
Parliament on Electoral Reforms’ headed by Dr. Arif Alvi, Ex-MNA also desired that ECP
may conduct Mock exercises for Overseas Voting by using the following two modes,
Postal Ballot (Online Re-registration, Voting through Postal Ballots), IVR Tele Voting,
Voting through Telephone (Interactive Voice Response). However the life cycle of Mock
Poll using Postal Ballot and IVR was not successful and the reports were also shared
with the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms.

INTERNET VOTING TASK FORCE (IVTF)

The Honorable Supreme Court of Pakistan convened a session on 12th April, 2018
(Reference Constitution Petition No.2/2018-SCJ) pertaining to the voting rights of Overseas
Pakistanis. This session was presided over by the Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan,
Justice Saqib Nisar, and included members of various political parties, IT experts from
Pakistani universities, concerned citizens, and members of the media. The purpose of the
session was to discuss the I-Voting platform developed by NADRA that would allow
overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes. As a result, on directions of the Honourable Supreme
Court of Pakistan, the Election Commission of Pakistan constituted a Task Force on 19th
April, 2018 to undertake a technical audit of the iVOTE platform. Following were the
recommendations of the Internet Voting Task Force:-

“Internet voting, if needed, be deployed in a piecemeal organic manner starting

with multiple small non-political elections (e.g. trade organization, bar councils,

Page 1 of 18
 engineering bodies, etc.), followed by small-scale political elections (intra-party
elections, local government polls, bye-elections), and slowly expand in scope.

This strategy allows for review and further improvement at every stage in terms of
usability and security. The electorate also gets a chance to adjust to this new
system and provide valuable feedback. Verifiability measures could be
incorporated piecemeal at different stages of the election process. The technical
challenges and threat model for deploying such a system also become clear and
system administrators develop valuable experience in the process.

Additionally, in the event of technical glitches, hacks, or system failure, the political
risk is proportionately restricted. Furthermore, if there are legal challenges to this
system (as have been observed in several countries including Germany, India, and
Poland), then they can be addressed in a timely manner without wasting resources
on a very large deployment.

It was also recommended that periodic security audits of Internet voting system as
well as regular sponsored hackathons and bug bounties (similar to those
conducted in India and at DEFCON) where hackers are invited to attack the system
for monetary reward.”

The detailed report of Internet Voting Task Force is attached at “Annexure-A”.

THE JUDGEMENT OF HONOURBLE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN FOR CONDUCT

OF PILOT PROJECT PASSED ON 17th AUGUST, 2018

In the Constitution Petitions No. 74 to 79 Of 2015, 49 to 56 of 2016 and 2 of 2018

and Civil Misc. Applications No. 4292 of 2017 and 162 of 2018 (Under Article 184
of the Constitution), the Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan has directed ECP to
conduct pilot project on Internet Voting (I-Voting) on 14th October, 2018 Bye-Elections
of 37 constituencies. The detailed Judgment is attached at “Annexure-B”. The operative
part of the Judgment is reproduced hereunder:-

“The ECP and NADRA has given presentations to this Court in the foregoing regard
and about third party validation that has also been received from independent experts,
regarding the safety, integrity, and workability of the system. Based on these
representations we prima facie find the mechanism of I-Voting to be safe, reliable and
effective for being utilized in a pilot project. We are sanguine that the aforesaid proposed
rules shall be incorporated in the Election Rules, 2017 to enable overseas Pakistanis to
exercise their right of vote in the forthcoming bye-elections. However, we direct the results
of the bye-elections and the vote count of the votes cast by the overseas Pakistanis through
the I-Voting mechanism shall be kept separately and also secret till the time that ECP
satisfied about the technical efficacy, secrecy and security of the votes cast by overseas
Pakistanis through the I-Voting System. In case such determination, made on the basis of
Page 2 of 18
reasons, is in the negative and the ECP is not satisfied about the integrity, safety and
reliability of the systems and votes cast through the same; ECP shall exclude the
segregated votes cast by the overseas Pakistanis from the official result of the bye-
elections in accordance with the proviso to Rule-84-C(2) supra. This safety feature shall
ensure that elections are founded upon verified and authenticated votes only.”

PROGRESS MADE BY ECP ON OVERSEAS VOTING

With regard to grant of right of vote to Overseas Pakistanis, the following tasks were
accomplished by ECP in the manner as follows:-
S# Activity Details Date
1. Letter sent to the UNDP for the preparation of comprehensive 16-11-2015
Feasibility Report on Overseas Voting for Pakistan

2. Terms of Reference (TOR) was communicated to UNDP for hiring 16-11-2015

International Consultants(s) specialized on Overseas Voting

3. Notification of Special Committee on Overseas Voting 20-11-2016

4. Letters were sent to following Ministries for the nomination for 20-11-2015
their Focal Persons:-
i. Ministry of Finance
ii. Ministry of Foreign Affairs
iii. Ministry of Interior
iv. Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis & HRD
v. National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA)
vi. Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom
vii. Ministry of Law & Justice 11-12-2015

5. The "Report on Overseas Voting (Mock Poll)" conducted by 23-11-2015

Election Commission of Pakistan and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs on the directions of the Sub Committee on Electoral
Reforms by following two different methodologies/modes of
voting i) Postal Ballot using email ii) Tele Voting (Interactive
Voice Response) during the period of Oct-Nov 2015

6. Presentation on outcome of the Overseas Voting (Mock Poll) 24-11-2015

7. The ECP designated Director (Research & Overseas Voting) along 04-12-2015
with his dedicated team to work on "Overseas Voting"

8. Engaging a Consultant for the propos by UNDP process of hiring January, 2016
complete

9. Michael burke UNDP's Consultant completed writing Feasibility March, 2016

Report on Overseas Voting for Pakistan

10. Feasibility Report on Overseas voting for Pakistan shared with March, 2016
Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms

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11. Meeting of ECP's Committee held to discuss possibility of Pilot April, 2016
Project through phone system and Discussion with Sub-
Committee regarding proposed pilot project using internet voting
system on 13-04-2016

12. The "brief report on Mock Exercise held National Assembly April, 2016
Secretariat using internet Voting System on 21st & 22nd April,
2016

13. Response to Special Report of the Senate Standing Committee on 11-07-2016

Overseas Pakistanis and human recourse Development on the
problem being faced by Overseas Pakistanis

14. NADRA Briefing to Election Commission on I-Voting System for 20-04-2017

Overseas Pakistanis as desired by Sub-Committee of
Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms

15. Meeting held with NADRA for provision of PS-114 NICOP card 24-05-2017
holder data alongwith demo of I-Voting software for Overseas

16. Letter sent to NADRA for obtaining data and software of i-Voting 05-06-2017
system for Overseas as a Pilot Project

17. NADRA's reply to ECP letter about regret of not having any I- 09-06-2017
Voting solution
18. Enactment of the Election Act, 2017 (Section-94) by Parliament 02-10-2017

19. Letter sent to NADRA to conduct Pilot testing of Overseas Voting 21-11-2017
under Section-94 of Election Act-2017 and share Draft Contract

20. NADRA’s draft Contract received for Pilot Testing to ECP 07-12-2017

21. Overseas Voting Committee re-constituted 05-01-2018

22. On the directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the ECP 19-04-2018
constituted a Task Force to undertake a technical audit of the I-
VOTE platform

23. Submission of Report by the Internet Voting Task Force to the 31-05-2018
Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan and ECP

24. Supreme Court order Issued to Conduct Pilot Project on 14th 17-08-2018
October 2018 in Bye-Elections of 35 constituencies

25. Framing of Rules with reference to I-Voting 08-10-2018

26. Pilot Testing of I-Voting System developed by NADRA in 35 14-10-2018

Constituencies

Page 4 of 18
Page 5 of 18
IMPLEMENTATION OF I-VOTING PILOT TEST IN BYE-ELECTIONS IN 35
CONSTITUENCIES HELD ON 14th OCTOBER, 2018

With reference to pilot testing of Overseas Pakistanis Voting in Bye-Elections of 35

constituencies held on 14th October 2018 as per Section 94 of Election Act, 2017 by
using Internet Voting System, the following different procedure/activities were
performed during the Pilot Project. Hon’ble Election Commission had approved the
timeline and had directed NADRA to perform the pilot test:-

Timelines for I-Voting Pilot (Bye-Elections 14 Oct 2018)

S# Activities Timelines Responsibility Compliance by NADRA

Re-Constitution of N.A.
1. Overseas Voting ECP
Committee
Election Schedule / N.A.
Identification of By 20th
2. ECP
Constituencies for I- August,
Voting 2018
Business Requirement Approval provided by ECP
Document (BRD) as per for implementation by
3. ECP & NADRA
Electoral Reforms NADRA on 29th August
Committee 2018.
Implementation of Technical
recommendations by Recommendations as
Task Force (Technical) practically possible and
4. NADRA & ECP
applicable were
implemented by NADRA as
per BRD approval of ECP.
User Acceptance Test of Approval provided by ECP
5. ECP
I-Voting on 29 August 2018.
Media Campaign for N.A
6. ECP
voters awareness
Provision of Form-33 N.A
By 1st to
7. List of Contesting ECP
15th
Candidates to NADRA
September,
Provision of Electoral N.A
8. 2018 ECP
Rolls Data
Integration of Electoral With per approval of ECP,
9. Rolls Data NADRA Electoral Rolls data was
integrated by NADRA
Letters to Ministry of NADRA updated
Foreign Affairs and messages/banners on
NADRA for further ECP, M/o NADRA official website,
10. dissemination message Foreign Affairs PakID website, displayed
about I-Voting pilot & NADRA A4 size banners,
testing and voter’s 6x4Panaflex Banners,
awareness campaign Standees at NADRA
Page 6 of 18
 counters/centers abroad
operative at Pakistan
Foreign Missions.
Demonstration of I- Demonstration to Hon’ble
Voting to Hon’ble 30th Election Commission of
11. Election Commission September, NADRA & ECP Pakistan was provided on
before implementation 2018 30th August 2018 before
Implementation.
Quality Assurance and Quality Assurance and
Stress Testing of Stress Testing of I-Voting
Application System was conducted
12. NADRA & ECP
before Implementation.
Reports were submitted to
ECP on 3rd September 2018.
Voter secrecy and result Full Admin Control/Users
encryption/Decryption were provided to ECP by
of data NADRA on 31st August
2018. Key generation,
Election Opening
(Encryption) was done by
1st ECP on 12th October 2018.
13. NADRA & ECP
September, Election Closure
2018 (Decryption) was done by
ECP on 14th October 2018.
NADRA provided technical
assistance/ guidance only
during these events, on
request of ECP.
Hosting deployment and NADRA deployed, hosted
maintenance of and maintained the
14. NADRA & ECP
Application Application as agreed with
ECP.
Training session of ECP Training provided by
15. Officers for running I- NADRA & ECP NADRA on 31 st August
Voting 2018.
Voter’s Re-registration Registration for I-Voting
initiated on 1st September
2018. As per ECP directives
1st to 15th
received on 14th September
16. September, ECP & NADRA
2018, Registration process
2018
was concluded on 17th
September 2018 at
0900hrs.
Call Center Support As per approved BRD,
Contact Center (email
1st
based support) was
September,
operational throughout the
17. 2018 upto NADRA
duration of Registration
after Poll
Phase till Election Day to
Day)
support all complaints of
eligible voters. Additionally,
Page 7 of 18
 Call Center Helpline was
also established between
10-14 October, 2018.
I-Voting Pilot testing Initial Presentation/
report of bye-elections briefing to Hon’ble Election
Commission by NADRA on
Within 10
18. NADRA 15th October 2018. This
days of poll.
report is being submitted in
compliance to this action
Item of NADRA.
Future Within 10 N.A.
recommendations days of the
19. ECP
pilot testing
report.

COMPOSITION OF I-VOTING SYSTEM

I-Voting system comprises of two main components i.e:-

 Voter Verification and Registration

 Voters Passcode and Vote Casting

VOTER REGISTRATION AND VERIFICATION

For Registration phase, the I-Voting comprises of two main components i.e. Voter
Verification and Registration System. These components facilitated the approved
process that involved email validity check for Account Creation and Voter Eligibility &
Verification before completion of Registration.

The system was deployed in Production and made available over the internet for
Registration of I-Voting on 1st September 2018. The Registration Phase was due to end
on 15th September 2018 (12:00am mid-night), however as per ECP directives, the
Registration phase was extended for 33 hours by ECP. A total of 7,419 voters from 35
constituencies were registered with I-Voting till closure of Registration phase.

In order to facilitate the potential voters in the registration phase of I-Voting there were
detailed guides and video tutorials available on the I-Voting website. Also, there was an
option to contact support team via email through the I-Voting Website.

Page 8 of 18
VOTER PASS CODE AND VOTE CASTING

This section pertains to issuance of Voter Pass activity (10th – 14th October, 2018) and
Vote Casting through I-Voting on Election Day i.e. 14th October, 2018 (8am-5pm
Pakistan Standard Time).

The Voter Pass issuance process involved sending system generated Voter Passes
through emails to registered voters of I-Voting. As per approved procedure for Vote
Casting through I-Voting, the registered voters were required to enter a valid voter pass
(for authentication of voter) before they can securely cast their votes through I-Voting.
In case the Voter did not receive their Voter Pass, Contact Center and Call Center were
operational to resend latest/valid voter pass to registered email address of the voters.
Additionally, if Voters felt that their Voter Pass was compromised/stolen, the registered
voters were provided with an option to Re-generate a new Voter Pass through system
after logging in to their I-Voting account. If a voter regenerated a voter pass, the
previously issued Voter Pass was invalidated automatically by the system.

As per the notification of ECP, the By-Elections, 2018 was scheduled on 14th October,
2018. The election time for I-Voting was from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pakistan Standard
Time (PST).

In order to ensure the secrecy of vote, the whole process of I-Voting was secured
through encryption and decryption of election event. This required ECP to generate the
Encryption / Decryption Keys. The encryption key was required to be entered for
opening the election event whereas the decryption key was required to close the
election event. After decryption and closure of election event, all reports including
Form-45 were made available by the system to ECP.

I-Voting website remained available throughout the duration of election time. As per the
approved procedure for Vote Casting through I-Voting, all registered voters were
required to login to their accounts, provide their Voter Pass and NICOP number (for
authentication purpose) and cast their vote on an Electronic Ballot Paper accordingly.
The voter was prompted through a message for confirmation before final vote was
recorded. This feature was provided to rule out any mistakes done by voter during vote
casting. In order to ensure that Voting is kept secret, all data was encrypted and no audit
trail of voting was kept by the system.

Page 9 of 18
ECP through Admin Panel of I-Voting, Generated the Keys and opened the Election event
on 12 October 2018 for 14th October 2018 By-Election, by entering the Encryption Key.
The Election event was closed by ECP on 14th October 2018 (after 5:00 PM) by entering
the Decryption Key. All reports including Form-45 were available within 20 minutes,
immediately on conclusion of decryption of data process.

A total of 7,364 Voter Passes were issued to all registered voters of 35 Constituencies
(of National and Provincial Assembly seats), in which voting through I-Voting was done
for Bye-Elections held on 14th October, 2018. These 7,364 voters could cast a total of
7,461 votes. On Election Day, a total of 6,146 Voters casted a total of 6,233 votes for 34
constituencies. There were 87 voters, who casted votes for both National Assembly
Seats and Provincial Assembly Seats i.e. NA-103/PP-103 and NA-56/PP-3.

No Voting through I-Voting was done for three Constituencies because:-

 PP-296 Rajanpur-IV and PP-87 Mianwali-III were declared unopposed by ECP;

 No Voter registered with I-Voting for PB-40 Khuzdar-III.

In order to facilitate the Registered I-Voters, detailed guides and video tutorial on "How
to Cast Vote" were made available at the I-Voting website www.overseasvoting.gov.pk.
Moreover, in addition to the E-mail based support (functioning from 1st September,
2018) through a dedicated Contact Centre, a Help Line was also set up from 10th
October, 2018 which remained operational till 14th October, 2018 (The Polling Day) at
the given number 0092-51-2778899.

STATISTICS OF I-VOTING

This section pertains to statistics of I-Voting during the Registration Phase, Voter Passes
Issuance and Voting on Election Day. The statistics provided in this section cover the
series of events from 1st September, 2018 till 14th October, 2018.

REGISTERED VOTERS AND VOTES

The set eligibility criteria for I-Voting in the Business Required Document (BRD) was
met by 631,909 Overseas Pakistanis for 35 Constituencies in which the Bye-Elections
were to be held (11 National Assembly & 26 Provincial Assemblies Seats). A total of
7,419 Voters (From 35 Constituencies) registered themselves for I-Voting to cast their

Page 10 of 18
Vote through Online Voting System. There were no voters registered from PB-40
Khuzdar-III.

These registered I-Voters were scored out from the manual voter lists, which was
prepared for Bye-Elections, 2018.

Prior to Bye-Elections held on 14th October, 2018, PP-296 Rajanpur-IV and PP-87
Mianwali-III were declared unopposed by ECP. Furthermore, no voter was registered
with I-Voting for PB-40 Khuzdar-III. As a result, Registered Voters (9 in total) from PP-
296 Rajanpur-IV and Registered Voters (46 in total) from PP-87 Mianwali-III were
excluded from voting through I-Voting bringing the final count of Registered Voters to
7,364 who were eligible to cast a total of 7,461 votes in 35 Constituencies.

ISSUANCE OF VOTER PASS

As scheduled, from 10th October 2018 till 14th October 2018, the Election Commission of
Pakistan issued Voter Passes to all 7,364 successfully registered voters falling into 35
Constituencies where Bye-Elections were held on 14th October, 2018.

VOTE CASTING ON ELECTION DAY

On 14th October, 2018, the Election Day of Bye-Elections, 2018, an overwhelming

response was received from the Registered Voters as they wholeheartedly participated
in polling through I-Voting. A total of 6,233 votes were casted, out of 7,461 total votes
(83.54%) for 35 Constituencies.

Page 11 of 18
 DAILY REGISTRATION TREND

1011
968

679
638

520
465
439

373
339
316
280 288 285 285
227
176
130

1-SEP 2-SEP 3-SEP 4-SEP 5-SEP 6-SEP 7-SEP 8-SEP 9-SEP 10-SEP 11-SEP 12-SEP 13-SEP 14-SEP 15-SEP 16-SEP 17-SEP

Reg Counts

NA + PA

Page 12 of 18
 POLL DAY HOURLY VOTING TREND
Votes

1037
866 920
848
665
545 515
448 389

DDOS ATTEMPTS ON I-VOTING PORTAL ON POLL DAY

Page 13 of 18
 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY VOTES
Registered Casted

1,353
1500

1,126

1,112
991
1000

698
641

567

561
523
510

460
400

321

312
304
281
500

265

257
230
202
68
65

0
NA- NA- NA- NA- NA-35 NA-53 NA-56 NA-60 NA-63 NA-65 NA-69
103 124 131 243

PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLIES' VOTES (1/2)

Registered Casted

698
800

561
600

312
400

257
185
149

200 89
86

70
67

63
56

51
45
37
32

32
27
21
18
1
1

0
PB-35 PK-3 PK-44 PK-53 PK-61 PK-64 PK-7 PK-78 PK-97 NA-65 NA-69

PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLIES' VOTES (2/2)

Registered Casted
300
253
227

250
200
112

150
94

93
83

100
74
71
48
47

46
35
27

50
23
23

23
22

20
20
18

12

9
8

7
6

6
3

Page 14 of 18
OBSERVATIONS OF ELECTION COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN

[Technical Efficacy, Secrecy, Security, Operations, Administrative]

1) What if one does not have a Machine Readable Passport;

2) What, if a Kafeel, especially in UAE/ Saudi context, gets all the computerized
passport and NICOPs from his employees/group of employees and does the
entire process himself;

3) What is the nature and potential of cyber threat to data in transit over the
internet, given the recent reports of cyber attacks during pilot runs. What are the
steps taken to mitigate. Is the capability of NADRA better than USA whose system
was hacked by Russia;

4) As we were on experimental stage, therefore, the interested parties did not

materially interfere merely to put us off track. When the system is finalized and
put into practice in toto in the next elections, shall we be able to counter/control
cyber attacks;

5) The secrecy of ballot is highly vulnerable and we would be totally compromising

it to accommodate a political slogan;

6) The system of voting is so complicated that it shall be definitely exploited to the

maximum by interested parties, which would always be there to rigg.

CHALLENGES

Following challenges were faced during pilot testing of Internet Voting System in bye-
elections:-
[Technical Efficacy, Administrative & Operations]

• As per I-Voting system set criteria, Machine Readable Passport (MRP) was
compulsory for registration process of the voters. It was observed that due to
this condition, approximately 15% potential voters of 35 constituencies were
deprived from the voting rights. Similarly, dual national having only CNIC were
not able to register themselves on the I-Voting System;

Page 15 of 18
[Technical Efficacy, Secrecy, Security, Operations and Administrative]

• The I-Voting system was difficult to use for labour class, who are working abroad
specially in middle east as well as other parts of the World, not having IT based
proficiency and skills as a result, registration process percentage was very low;
[Technical Efficacy, Operations & Administrative]

• It was also observed that due to tight Election Schedule, the registration process
of overseas voters was opened for very short period i.e. 17 days, which has also
contributed in low voter registration turnout;
[Technical Efficacy, Secrecy, Security, Administrative and Operations]

• NADRA reported that Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks was launched
on I-Voting website on poll day i.e. 14th October 2018, which was intercepted
effectively, however, in future chances of these kind of attacks will always
remain there as a potential hacking threat. Similarly, foreign entities can
compromises ballot secrecy and potentially even modify ballot contents of voters
in an undetected manner;
[Secrecy, Security, Operations]

• In case of hacking of voters’ email, chances of misuse of voter’s ID does also

exist;
[Secrecy, Security, Administrative and Operations]

• Some incidents were reported that few voters disclosed the secrecy of vote by
capturing the screen of Internet Voting portal during voting process and shared
the same on social media. In future, these kinds of trend may also spoil the basic
concept of election process, that is secrecy of ballot as per Article 226 of the
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan;
[Technical Efficacy, Operations and Administrative]

• During the registration process, it was observed that there was no interactive
support/call center was available for overseas voters, where they can raise their
queries and questions could be addressed on real-time basis, however, NADRA
has introduced an Email based complaint system, which was only meant for only
I-Voting portal’s registered voters, which was not sufficient to cater the queries
and complaints of worldwide overseas voters/general public. Due to this
limitation, users/voters faced difficulties for redressel of their complaints and

Page 16 of 18
 questions based on general queries. As a result, many complaints were directly
responded by ECP Secretariat;
[Technical Efficacy, Secrecy & Operations]

• There is no record of the proceedings, hence, no evidence is available in case

internet voting changes the result of any constituency and same is challenged
through an election petition in that constituency there is no evidence is available
of the any activity in such process for paper audit.

[Technical Efficacy, Secrecy, Security, Operations & Administrative]

• The recent incident of data theft/hack of banking customers of major local banks
in Pakistan created serious data security and privacy concerns resultantly it
attracts doubts on all types of (online) electronic transactions. The cyber crime,
cyber terrorism and vandalism are the common electronic challenges for any
organization in the IT world. This episode was havoc in the electronic banking
system of the country, where the all credentials of the customers were leaked
and then sold in the Deep Web using Dark Web Technologies by the renowned
hackers.
[Financial feasibility]

• The pilot project cost is about Rs. 95 million but if it is assumed to think for
national roll over then it will cost Rs. 150 million as per NADRA.

WAY FORWARD

After the completion of first pilot test of Internet Voting for Overseas Pakistanis in bye-
elections in 35 constituencies held on 14th October 2018, it is suggested that following
recommendations may be considered before continuing pilot testing in future bye-
election of any National/Provincial Assemblies constituency to gauge the performance,
feasibility and security of I-Voting system:-

• Based on first pilot feedback, some modifications/improvement in I-Voting

Software are required to be made like Machine Readable Passport was added in
the system as additional security feature during registration process for voters’
verification purposes, which causes low voter registration. However, as per law,
the Machine Readable Passport is not mandatory for overseas voting registration

Page 17 of 18
 like NICOP. It is, therefore, recommended that some other security features may
be added like verification through phone number by sending One Time Password
(OTP), which is used by most banking systems for secure transactions;

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Overseas

Pakistanis Foundation may be requested to extend their support for overseas
voters awareness and education programme as well as media campaigns
through Embassies and Consulates for maximum participation in I-Voting
process;

• NADRA may devise such mechanism that overseas voters’ registration process
may continue for sufficient period of time, so that voters’ education and
awareness campaigns may be carried out properly to reach out maximum
number of voters spread over different parts of the World;

• For future pilot testing, NADRA may establish an interactive call/complaint

center at large scale for redressel of queries of all overseas voters from
worldwide during Election Schedule;

• Some necessary reporting features may also be added in I-Voting software like
detail forensic record of any particular event may be made available as and when
required by the Honourable Election Commission for Audit purpose;

• Security features of the I-Voting System may also be improved based on risks
that were identified during the execution of first pilot.

~*~*~*~*~

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