A single polling station in South Waziristan was assigned a staggering 7,358 voters for the General Elections 2024, a figure more than six times the legally prescribed limit, in a significant breach of electoral law that created a practically impossible voting scenario for thousands of citizens.
According to a report by Free and Fair Election Network today, the voting site in question, Polling Station No. 30, was established at the Government Middle School Janat Mir in Kanigurram. Designated as a combined facility for both men and women, it had only four polling booths to service 3,784 male and 3,574 female registered individuals.
This massive assignment of electorate meant each of the four booths would have needed to process nearly four voters per minute to accommodate everyone. This pace is considered logistically unfeasible, as the standard voting process, from identity verification to casting the ballot, typically requires approximately one minute per person.
This specific location was one of 53 polling stations across 23 National Assembly constituencies where over 4,000 voters were assigned, a number far exceeding the official ceiling.
The constituency, NA-42 South Waziristan Upper-cum-South Waziristan Lower, had the highest concentration of these overcrowded electoral facilities in the country, with 11 such stations. Overall, 276 polling stations were set up in the constituency for its 467,000 voters, resulting in an average of 1,693 people per station, already well above the legal recommendation.
On election day, February 8, only 630 people managed to cast their ballots at the Kanigurram school, marking a meager turnout of 8.5 percent. The overall voter participation in the constituency also remained notably low at 16.6 percent, a situation believed to be influenced by the security conditions in the tribal region.
Kanigurram, a valley in the Ladha Tehsil of Upper South Waziristan, is predominantly inhabited by the Burki tribe. For the 2024 elections, over half of the area”s 13,000 registered voters were directed to the single, overwhelmed Polling Station No. 30, while the rest were distributed among four other locations.
According to Section 59(3) of the Elections Act, 2017, a polling station should not serve more than 1,200 voters, with a maximum of 300 individuals per booth. This regulation is designed to prevent overcrowding, extended queues, and potential mismanagement that could lead to voter disenfranchisement.
While the law allows for deviations from this rule, it mandates that the reasons must be recorded in writing. However, the publicly available official document (Form-29) for NA-42, issued by the District Returning Officer, provided no justification for the exceptionally high number of voters assigned to these stations.