PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) provincial spokesperson Samar Bilour Wednesday urged
the government to opt for Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in Cantonment Board elections in order to test the efficacy of the machines.
Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club, she said that the EVM project would require at-least Rs 75 billion and if the government wanted general elections 2023 through EVM, then it would have to start manufacturing of 3, 000 machines on a daily basis with immediate effect.
She further said that implementation of EVM would require training of at-least 3 to 5 hundred thousand officials other than the technical staff while additional amount would be spent on maintenance of machines and training of staff.
Samar Bilour said that eight democratic countries out of a total 134 states of the world were holding elections through EVM.
She was of the view that ANP would resist the EVM use until reservations of all the stakeholders were addressed by the government.
Quoting the Federal Minister Shibli Faraz, she said the minister claimed polling results within 45 seconds after completion of the polling process.
She suggested that data storage needed transparency and it would be imperative to connect the data with CNIC to ensure transparency in the polling process.