Pakistani Electoral Process in Disarray, Observers Warn

"The new computerized electoral rolls are the most accurate voters' list that Pakistan has produced, although the list is not yet complete," said Anne Aarnes, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan.

Election Commission officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the rolls.

Aarnes pointed out that the United States has also spent money on efforts not related specifically to the Election Commission, including support for election monitoring by local groups and training for journalists who will cover the election.

But Pakistani democracy advocates say that funding for those programs is comparatively small and that they had repeatedly told the United States and other international donors that focusing so much aid on the Election Commission was a waste.

"We warned them about what has now happened," said Zafarullah Khan, executive director of Pakistan's Center for Civic Education. "But donor countries were too cautious about annoying Musharraf."

Since 2001, Washington has been one of Musharraf's most stalwart supporters, providing Pakistan with $10 billion in aid -- most of it for the military. The United States has continued to back Musharraf this year, even as his popularity within Pakistan has dwindled.

The effort to create a new voter list began last summer, after Pakistani officials determined that the rolls used during 2002 parliamentary elections were so inaccurate they could not be reused. The new, computerized list would begin from scratch.

The Election Commission dispatched thousands of schoolteachers to go door-to-door distributing registration forms, then sent the teachers out again to collect them. But at the end, officials discovered they had only about 52 million names -- 20 million fewer than in 2002. With population growth, experts had expected the number of names to rise, not fall, and many say they believe 30 million or more names are missing from the new rolls.

"The whole methodology adopted by the Election Commission was flawed," said Sarwar Bari, who leads Pakistan's Free and Fair Elections Network, a pro-democracy nonprofit group.

For one thing, Bari said, it was a mistake to have people fill out the forms themselves in a country where half the population is illiterate. Furthermore, in some cases, the absence of some names may have been no accident at all.

"My name, my wife's name and my daughter's name were all missing from the rolls," Bari said.

Opposition political groups have charged that this is just another episode in a long history of attempts by Pakistani governments to rig the polls before election day. The Pakistan People's Party, led by exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has said that nearly half the voters listed on the 2002 rolls from her home town of Larkana were absent from the new rolls.

The opaque nature of the Election Commission has only heightened suspicions. The commission has routinely refused to meet with civic groups or political parties, according to members of both groups. It has also declined to allow anyone to monitor the data-entry process.

While the Supreme Court has intervened to try to get the rolls fixed, the proposed solution -- merging the 2002 and 2007 lists while lowering identification standards -- could create even more problems. "Now I'll be able to add my name three or four times," Bari said.

Meanwhile, many voters who think they are registered may be disappointed on election day. Qasim Jan, a 28-year-old vendor in the northern city of Peshawar, said he would like to vote but doesn't think he will get the chance because he was never told he needed to fill out a new form. "I leave home early in the morning and return after sunset," Jan said. "Nobody ever asked me to register my name."

Khan, head of the civic education group, wonders whether that wasn't the point all along.

"Such disappointments help dictatorships," he said.

Special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.