Can overseas Pakistanis vote on July 25? Officials clarify

Messages on WhatsApp, social media suggest that Pakistani expats can vote.

With elections less than a week away, messages on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media platforms were being shared that overseas Pakistanis can vote on July 25.
In fact, some of the messages have been attributed to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), the government entity which maintains national database of all the Pakistanis and also issues national identity cards to all its citizens.
The fact is that Nadra officials have refuted all these messages as baseless, hence, overseas Pakistanis are not eligible to vote on July 25 while residing in a foreign country.
According to Pakistani media reports, Nadra has rejected all rumours and stated that the matter is still pending with the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
"Overseas Pakistanis will not be allowed to vote on July 25," a Nadra spokesperson was quoted as saying in Express Tribune on Thursday. Therefore, Pakistanis will have to go back to the country in order to exercise their right to vote. And also, only those overseas Pakistanis will be able to vote, who are already registered as voters in the home country.
"Online voting for overseas Pakistanis can be experimented in by-polls. Pakistanis abroad will have to come to the country for using their right to vote in the general election," a Nadra spokesperson said.
Saqib Nisar, Chief Justice of Pakistan, had earlier spoken in favour of granting voting rights to overseas Pakistanis. In March, he said that overseas Pakistanis will be provided the right to cast their votes in the upcoming elections.
During the hearing of a case related to the voting rights to overseas Pakistanis in April, it was told that providing e-voting facility to seven million overseas Pakistanis will cost Rs150 million (Dh4.2 million).
Interestingly, one of the messages that is being circulated on social media gives a website address www.overseasvoting.gov.pk which doesn't even exist.
waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com
-waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

• Pakistan