Had EVMs been there today...: Pakistan President

February 11, 2024 10:31

Pakistan President Arif Alvi expressed his frustration over the delayed election results and stated that if the electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been in use during the general elections on February 8, the nation would not be facing this current crisis, Geo News reported.

Despite the commission's lofty claims, the Election Commission of Pakistan's new Election Management System (EMS) failed, he said.

Notably, the election regulator has yet to release the preliminary results for every constituency, nearly seventy-two hours after the polls closed.

In a post on social media platform X, President Alvi said: "Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis."

President Alvi recalled the fight for the EVMs waged by the previous PTI-led government, saying that the entire endeavour -- which involved more than 50 meetings at the presidency alone -- was abandoned.

"Remember 'our' long struggle for EVMs. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today) but it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed," he said.

The president, according to Geo News, said that the totals of every candidate would have been available and printed within five minutes of the closing of the poll if the machines were used.

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