Polling starts to facilitate 676,795 voters in Capital

ISLAMABAD, Nov 29 (APP): Polling process started in capital Monday morning to facilitate 676,795 voters in 50 union councils for putting in place first ever local government.
There are 2396 candidates in the run from more than 20 political
parties as 366,899 male and 309,896 female voters will exercise their right to adult franchise.
In each Union Council, voters will elect 13 representatives including a Chairman, Vice Chairman, six general members, two women members, one peasant or labor member, one youth member and one non-Muslim member.
In all, 640 polling stations have been established out of which 261 will be for male and 256 for female voters. However; 123 polling stations will be combined for men and women.
To facilitate voters the ECP has established 2,156 polling booths for LG elections out of which 1,121 polling stations for males and 1,035 for female voters.
There is one District Returning Officer and 10 Returning Officers for the conduct of LG elections in Capital.
The ECP has deputed 640 Presiding officers, 6,468 Assistant Presiding Officers and 2156 Polling Officers for conducting Local bodies’ election in the federal capital. Moreover, around 4,952 ballot boxes and 2,152 screens of compartment have been dispatched to the polling stations.
Sin types of ballot papers are being used on 13 seats of each union council and ECP has dispatched over four million ballot papers to the District Returning Officer (DRO). The voters would use green ballot paper for seat of Chairman and Vice Chairman and white for general seats as a voter would cast six votes each.
The polling started on time with reports of delay from some polling stations due to late arrival of election staff. Time duration for balloting is 10 hours in the capital instead of nine hours.
The commission has also set up a control room to report about any eventually during the polling process.