The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has held returning officers (ROs) responsible for the mess created in various constituencies in the general elections held last year.
According to a post-election report issued by the ECP, the officers taken from the lower judiciary amended the polling scheme during the last few days before the general elections, causing confusion among polling staff, voters and other stakeholders. They also changed polling staff at the last minute, replacing trained staff with inexperienced personnel.
The ROs were legally responsible to identify and select polling stations. But, the report added, they did not conduct this task themselves.
The report said untrained staff was engaged for tabulation. Mistakes in the Form XIV negatively influenced the result tabulation. ROs used the manual system and result management system (RMS) as secondary mechanism.
