VOTER EDUCATION IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR INVOLVING THE GENERAL PUBLIC
Lahore, the 26th December, 2007.- An orientation workshop for District Returning Officers was held in Lahore. In augural speech of Mr. Justice (R) Qazi Muhammad Farooq, Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan and Mr. K.M. Dilshad, Secretary said that, Election Commission of Pakistan and UNDP are jointly implementing the Support to National Elections in Pakistan Project. This project is also supported by International donor community including USAID, DFID, Netherlands, Norway, Japan, European Union and Canada. Today’s event organized by ECP and UNDP was part of the largest training roll out plan ever implemented in Pakistan. This being the orientation of District Returning Officers (DROs) was conducted to give a broader vision of the election process in terms of the new steps taken for free and fair elections. Participants included District Returning officers from all Districts of Punjab, including Islamabad.
As part of the overall training program some 600,000 election officials are being trained and the training will be completed by end of December, 2007. These election officials included DROs some 130, ROs / AROs some 1700, Presiding Officers 70,000 and 500,000 polling staff. For the first time visual and pictorial material is being used and demonstration is being given on the new electoral commodities. These new electoral commodities include translucent ballot boxes and voter booths. A total of 430,000 ballot boxes and 300,000 voter screens are being used for the upcoming elections.
Voter education is also very important for involving the general public in the voter education process, considering the low voter turn out over the last years. Some 100 NGOs are being involved in this process all over Pakistan in 100 Districts. Millions of copies of posters, brochures and leaflets have been printed for the voter education campaign.
For ensuring that the party agents are also familiar with the new processes and material, 1 million party agent handbooks have been printed and 500,000 are being used by National Democratic Institute (NDI) in imparting training of party polling agents.
