BRIDGE Electoral Technologies workshop took place in Karachi, Pakistan

BRIDGE Electoral Technologies workshop took place in Karachi, Pakistan during 26-28 March 2014. It was organized by IFES Pakistan, in cooperation with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for the members of provincial commissions and electoral administration officials from ECP. Also the workshop was attended by the Member of Election Commission of Pakistan Mr. Justice (Retd.) Muhammad Roshan Essani.

The workshop was conducted in English by a team of international and national experts: Emad Yousef, expert level facilitator; Pavel Cabacenco, accrediting level facilitator; Kulsoom Akhtar Meraj, IFES Pakistan, workshop facilitator; Asif Ali Esim, ECP, workshop facilitator. Remarkable presentations were made by Ole Holtved, IFES Pakistan CoP; Shabir Ahmed, IFES Pakistan DCoP; Ejaz Ahmed, IFES Pakistan Sr. Electoral Reform Officer;Nadia Fakhar, IFES Pakistan Project Associate Election Technologies.

The workshop was opened by ECP Member Mr. Justice (Retd.) Muhammad Roshan Essani, Acting Additional Secretary/DG Elections, Mr. Syed Sher Afgan and IFES Pakistan Chief of Party Mr. Ole Holtved who welcomed the participants, introduced the facilitators to the audience and talked about the importance of the workshop.

The workshop agenda focused on definition of electoral technologies, context in which of electoral technologies are used, international standards and practices, election observation checklists, use of technologies for voting, voter registration, boundary delimitation, management of new technologies, planning and steps which need to be taken by an EMB before and after the decision to use certain type of technology on one or another stages of electoral process.

Workshop participants positively evaluated the workshop in terms of content and methodology and thanked the implementers.

BRIDGE Electoral Technologies workshop was conducted in frames of the IFES Pakistan “Support for Electoral Reform in Pakistan” (SERP) project supported by the Canadian Government, the European Union and the UK aid through the UK government. The SERP project aims to promote and strengthen electoral processes in Pakistan and to provide support to the Election Commission of Pakistan.