Pakistan Election Commission Launches Pilot to Register 174845 Women Voters in Two Districts

The Election Commission of Pakistan announced on Saturday a pilot project to reduce the gender gap on the electoral rolls in Kasur district of Punjab and Qamber-Shahdadkot district of Sindh. The commission aims to facilitate the registration of 115,689 women in Kasur and 59,156 women in Qamber-Shahdadkot, for a combined total of 174,845.

Data collection will take place in November 2026. Voter-registration activities will run from December 2026 to February 2027. Local social workers and enumerators will conduct door-to-door visits to identify women who lack Computerised National Identity Cards or are not yet on the rolls. NADRA Mobile Registration Vans will be deployed to those doorsteps. Facilitation centres will also operate in government buildings.

Areas with the widest gender gaps will be prioritised in the first phase. Representatives from the education and health sectors, civil-society organisations and local communities will assist the enumerators. The project is designed to remove practical barriers that have kept eligible women off the rolls, including distance to registration offices and lack of identity documents.

The ECP has not published a full baseline figure for the current gender gap in the two districts. The stated targets represent the number of women the commission expects to reach through the combined outreach and mobile-van effort. Success will be measured by the number of new CNICs issued and the number of women added to the electoral rolls by the end of February 2027.

The pilot is the first of its kind announced for this cycle. If the approach produces measurable increases in registration, the commission can expand it to additional districts. The door-to-door method and the use of NADRA vans are intended to bring the registration process to women who have not previously travelled to fixed centres. Results will be available after the February close of the registration window.