Pakistan Elections: Imran Khan casts vote via postal ballot

According to sources cited by Pakistan-based Dawn, former prime minister Imran Khan and other prominent figures who are presently behind bars have used postal ballots to cast their votes from Adiala Jail. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and other party leaders, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, are incarcerated; voting began in Pakistan on Thursday. Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister of Pakistan, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, the former chief minister of Punjab, Sheikh Rashid, the head of the Awami Muslim League, and Fawad Chaudhry, the former information minister, are among the other leaders who have successfully cast mail-in ballots.

Imran Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, was unable to vote as she was convicted and arrested after the completion of the postal voting process. Fewer than 100 prisoners of Adiala Jail were able to vote, which implies that about one per cent of the jail’s 7000 inmates, according to Dawn report.
The Jail administration allowed only those inmates to vote who had valid computerised national identity cards (CNICs), Dawn reported, citing sources. The reason behind the low turnout was that an overwhelming majority of the prisoners did not have the original CNIC.

“There are criminals, dacoits, thieves, convicts in the heinous crimes and under-trial prisoners (UTPs) detained in the jail,” a senior official told Dawn in an interview. According to him, the majority of criminals lacked a CNIC in order to conceal their identities, while police stations typically withheld the identities of Under Trial Prisoners (UTP). The official stated that postal ballots from the Pakistani Election Commission were received by the Adiala Jail administration in the middle of January, and the ballots were distributed to the prisoners. Submissions were due by January 22nd. Asad Javed Warraich, the jail superintendent, did, however, extend the period of time after which the votes were delivered in sealed envelopes to the district returning officers (DROs) of the corresponding constituencies.