For the first time in Pakistan’s electoral history, political parties are discussing the possibility and modus operandi of investigating the quality of General Elections 2013 with the purpose of determining whether they were “rigged”. Election audits are very rare, and such an investigation is a complex and technical task. Therefore, it is understandable that there have been delays in finalizing the scale and scope of the probe so that it is mutually agreeable to the political parties on both sides of the deadlock.

There is no standard methodology or procedure to investigate an election. In general, the aim of an audit is to determine whether the election result accurately reflects the will of the voters who cast ballots on Election Day – in other words whether the votes on Election Day were cast by duly registered voters, were counted correctly, and then were added together accurately to reach the final election result, says FAFEN in its General Election 2013 – Three Stage Methodology for Result Audit report.

To download this report, click here