Islamabad: Pakistan's Election Commission on Tuesday released new computerized lists of 84.365 million voters, a major step towards the holding of the next parliamentary polls.
Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G Ebrahim told a news conference in Islamabad that there are 47.773 million male voters and 36.591 million female voters in the new rolls.
Giving the provincial break-up, he said 48.308 million voters had been registered in the most populous province of Punjab, 18.432 million in Sindh, 12.064 million in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 3.278 million in Balochistan, 1.675 million in the tribal belt and over 600,000 in the federal area of Islamabad.
Ebrahim said four million overseas Pakistanis had been registered as voters and a committee set up to evolve a mechanism for them to cast their votes.
Ebrahim said with the publication of the voters' lists, the electoral process had been kicked off in the country.
"Our utmost endeavour is to make the next election free, fair and transparent," he said.
The Election Commission conducted a door-to-door campaign to check and verify data on voters provided by the National Database and Registration Authority.
The new electoral lists are final though corrections can still be made if there are any mistakes or if more persons attain the age of 18 before the announcement of the election schedule, he said.
He appealed to the media, civil society and political parties to assist the Election Commission in removing mistakes from the electoral lists.
The new lists have been displayed at district offices of the Election Commission and voters can verify their names and make corrections if they find mistakes, he said.
Voters can also verify their name and area in the electoral lists through a special SMS facility, he said.
The Election Commission is ready to hold local government elections but the provincial governments have to frame legislation for such polls, Ebrahim said.
The next general election is scheduled for March-April next year.
However, opposition parties have accused the Pakistan People's Party-led government of widespread corruption and bad governance and demanded that the polls be advanced.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, July 31, 2012, 23:19