Daily Times

KARACHI: After successful implementation of online polling scheme pilot project, The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has approved the nationwide implementation of GIS polling scheme, Daily Times has learnt.

The ECP has planned to complete full-scale nationwide execution of the GIS poling scheme by May 2017.The phase one of this project has been completed successfully in all provincial capitals including, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta while all remaining districts of the country will be covered during phase II.

The ECP will activate GIS Polling Stations on Google Maps for the voters/contesting candidates/political parties. This project has been devised to help the general public in finding their respective polling stations on Google Satellite Map that navigates the voter to see his/her Polling Station location along with the building photographs. It will also provide the number of total voters as well as male and female voters in these polling stations

According to the documents available with this scribe, initially, the ECP has implemented the GIS polling scheme during Islamabad in local government elections held on November, 30, 2015 covering 640 polling stations while after this successful pilot, ECP conducted second pilot in Bye-Elections NA 218 Matiari cum Hyderabad. ECP has also conducted Bye-Elections in PS -76 Dadu, NA 245 Karachi-VII and PS 115 Karachi -XXVII under this scheme. Total 9248 polling stations of 39 national assemblies’ constituencies and 84 provincial assemblies’ constituencies were covered during the phase I of the GIS polling scheme in all provincial capitals of the country.

In GIS polling scheme, the ECP will cater instant availability of details of polling stations including location of polling station, number and name of polling station, polling station picture, information of polling booths registered, facility to allow public to find their polling stations on Google Map. Public can find direction of the polling stations from their home and Urdu format of Form-14 with pre-printed candidates’ names through GIS polling scheme. The ECP will make available android version of Polling Scheme Management System (PSMS) for taking snaps of the polling stations and result forms for further transmission to the system.

In order to implement phase II of this scheme smoothly across the country, the ECP has devised frame work, according to which, the ECP will constitute different teams consisted of representatives of District Election Commission (DEC) and Education Revenue Departments while staff car drivers and security personnel will be required to assist the teams. The ECP aims to achieve goals through this scheme are permanent polling station, use of GIS technology, transparency, public trust and confidence.

In phase II, there are 69729 polling stations are expected to visit in which 1548 are located in Islamabad, 10514 in Khyber Pakhtunkhuva (KPK) & tribal Areas, 40008 in Punjab, 14980 in Sindh and 3679 in Balochistan.

The ECP has planned to conduct training sessions for the staff, according to training plan, one day of training including half day practical will be conducted for the master trainers and one day training including half day practical for the DECs and nominated staff appointed for this project survey.

Trainings of DECs and staff/DEOs are expected to start from October, 24-25, 2016 while two days training session for the RECs/DECs and staff of RECS/DECs of all provinces will be conducted from October, 27, to November, 8, 2016.

According to the timeframe for the implementation of the GIS polling scheme phase II, data collection through polling stations’ visits would be continued from November, 14, 2016 to March, 31, 2017. Deadline for entry of data into PSMS is April, 15, 2017 then verification of polling schemes by DECs would be done by April, 29, 2017. Finally the evaluation report would be prepared by May, 06, 2017. In this regard, the ECP has asked the Sindh government to provide assistance for the implementation of the polling scheme the ECP has demanded 58 4×4 jeeps or car according to area along with driver and fuel for two survey teams for each district. The ECP has also asked government of Sindh to provide 58 security personnel for 58 survey teams.