Simultaneous Voting Starts At 85,058 Polling Stations Across Country

Voting process started on Wednesday at 85,058 polling stations amid tight security arrangements across the country as per the schedule announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for the General Election-2018.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jul, 2018 ) :Voting process started on Wednesday at 85,058 polling stations amid tight security arrangements across the country as per the schedule announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for the General Election-2018.

The 10-hour polling that started at 8:00am will continue without any break till 6 pm.

The police teams are patrolling in sensitive areas all across the country to avoid any untoward incident.

Enthusiastic citizens were seen lined-up outside their respective polling stations before start of the polling process to elect their representatives for national and provincial assemblies.

Political leaders from different parties began casting their votes as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif cast his vote in Model Town, Lahore while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Umar cast his vote in NA-54 constituency of Islamabad.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam's (JUI-F) Maulana Fazl-Ur-Rehman cast his vote in NA-238 Dera Ismail Khan while former National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq cast his vote in Garhi Shahu, Lahore.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Syed Khursheed Shah cast his vote in Sukkur's NA-207 constituency, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) founder Mustafa Kamal cast his vote in Karachi's NA-243 while Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Dr Farooq Sattar aslo cast his vote.

Yasmeen Rashid, a prominent leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, cast her vote in Lahore.

Meanwhile, the ECP has established a central control room and election cell at its headquarters to collect and disseminate the results of general election and managing other aspects of election activities.

The ECP has made elaborate arrangements to ensure holding of the election in a free, fair and transparent manner. The commission has established around 85,058 polling stations and 244,687 polling booths throughout the country, besides deputing a total of 819,119 polling staff there.

There are 105,955,409 registered voters including 59,224,263 male and 46,731,146 female.

As many as 11,673 candidates are contesting elections out of which 3,428 are for National Assembly while 8,245 are for provincial assemblies. For National Assembly 1,805 candidates are contesting election from different political parties while 1,623 are independent candidates.

Similarly, for provincial assemblies, as many as 3,856 candidates are contesting from political parties while 4,389 independent candidates are also contesting. For reserved seats 44 candidates are contesting election for National Assembly while 113 for provincial assemblies for Non-Muslim reserved seats.

The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has issued Computerized National Identity Cards to 650,000 citizens in five days, enabling them to cast their votes while about 300,000 CNICs were ready to be delivered to the people and for this purpose the NADRA office would remain open till 14:00 hours to facilitate voters.