Daily Times

Undoubtedly from Helsinki to Hawaii and from Macau to Moscow, nations are evolving; democratic values are flourishing and generations are embracing change.

Yet, we in Pakistan do not allow our people with dual citizenship to run for public office, sit in the assemblies, contest elections or join the Countries Armed forces.

In 2012, the Supreme Court of Pakistan even disqualified eleven lawmakers for failing to disclose their dual nationalities upon taking office.

As blessings of change have started to spill on our democratic soil, the National Assembly passed the Election Act Amendment Bill, 2020 which contains several amended clauses to introduce electoral reforms, including the right of vote to overseas Pakistanis, open ballot for Senate polls and use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) hence ensuing a controversial political debate demanding comprehensive soul searching in order to shun the shallow stigma of being devoid of judgment and reason representing a barren political landscape.

The point to ponder over should be that before we tread on the path of experimentation, the world knows for a fact that we only have an Estonian example as its the only country in the world in which any citizen can cast a remote electronic vote during elections to their national parliament (Riigikogu).

Now as imaginative as we are, setting aside the Baltic model, we should know for a fact that we are a colossal country of more than  220 million of which 105.96 million are voters. Clearly we are no match to the Baltic states, as certainly we just simply don’t just have a Riigikogu’s elections to manage, what we need is a comprehensive organized systemsans seepages and technical glitches.

But our trendsetters unfortunately fogged by political evolutionary deformation reinforcing that we are a nation of adventurers.

We fail to observe and learn what the world around us has already experimented tested tasted toasted and sourly snubbed.

We as a responsible democracy need to fathom a factual reality that the remote voting mechanisms have been experimented in the countries around the world since decades and have their alarming shortcomings which were seen in leading democracies around the world and one example being the municipal elections held 2018 in Ontario Canada which were conducted online in 2018.

It should dawn upon experts in Pakistan that Ireland has already tasted and done away with its EVM system and it failed miserably in a country like Philippines marred by challenges such as the socioeconomic environment and technical glitches clouding its credibility.

As we saw in India after 2010, NRIs in India were allowed to vote but the voting required the direct presence of the NRI in India at the particular polling booth where the name was registered.

Given our pattern of political plagiarism, we should introduce modern electioneering mechanisms undoubtedly. Democrats should adopt a multi-pronged political mechanism based on a paper trail to help confirm the reliable operation of EVMs to start with.

Government should ensure that EVMs are stored under strict security which can be monitored by candidates or their agents all the times.

Leaning from our neighboring democracy where the EVM were allegedly wirelessly tampered with, we as the sole champions of democracy of this earth should devise a heavenly strategy of refraining from E tempering of the E machines in order to absolve us of electoral rigging wrangling.

Another utopian solution to our democratic dream and electronic voting should be looping in all political parties to examine the possibility of introduction of the paper trail so that voters can get a printout that will show symbol of the party to which the vote was cast,

Hence the election commission should be allowed to devise a mechanism of  “paper trail” of the vote cast.

Therefore it’s advisable that our Pure Pakistani electronic voting machines (EVM’s) should be having incorruptible software and a printer attached to the machine.

In order to ensure transparency of the elections conducted, our system should reflect when a vote is cast, it is recorded in its memory and simultaneously a serial number and vote data is printed out.

A bare sheer unadorned EVM system should be properly clad with an adequate voter-verifiable paper audit trail if possible along with an optical scan voting system exposing under hand compromising tactics in order to save Jinnah’s dream to help confirm the reliable operation of EVMs.

Interestingly, however, we in Islamic republic of Pakistan tilts the equilibrium favoring the gentle gender in only a single aspect. According to Pakistani Citizenship Act of 1951, one has to be a female only who can retain her dual citizenship if she acquires citizenship of another country.

Charmingly enough, according to section 14 of Pakistan’s citizenship Act, only males are stripped of Pakistan’s citizenship if they acquire citizenship of countries specified in law.

Currently, the Constitution does not allow persons of dual nationality to contest elections in Pakistan according to Article 63.

Interestingly, the interim and current constitution of AJK does not place any restriction on Kashmiris with a dual nationality contesting elections and holding membership of the Legislative Assembly.

Given that EVMs are stored under strict security which can be monitored by candidates or their agents all the time, it’s impossible to gain physical access to the machines. Plus, to impact the results of an election, hundreds to thousands of machines will be needed to tamper with, which is almost impossible given the hi-tech and time-consuming nature of the tampering process.

System needs to be evolved in EVMs to counter the charges of tampering and ensure that the EVM units cannot be wirelessly tampered with through a comprehensive voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT).

My humble advise as a lawyer would be to refrain from jumping on the bare EVM bandwagon sans the saddle.

Unfortunately, our dream of democracy was devastated as our sails slipped in the sorrow of losing Jinnah and we lost our course waving under the storm in uncharted waters.

It’s critical for furtherance of democratic electioneering that our erstwhile decision makers should fathom the faithful fact of fair play and justice that its men who manage machines hence machines shall not and will not manage the mandate of the masses.

The writer is a Senior High Court Lawyer based in Chakwal, Choa Saiden Shah and a former member of parliament.