Why Forms 45 and 47 are at the heart of Pakistan’s election rigging controversy

‘Result of Count’ form

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) provides several forms to document results in a constituency. Most important of these is Form 45, also known as the ‘Result of Count’ form.

This form acts as a formal record of votes polled at a polling station, and thus is crucial for compiling results at the level of the constituency. It contains essential information on the polling station, including the station number, the constituency it falls under, total number of registered voters, total number of votes cast, and a breakdown of the votes earned by each candidate.

It is signed not just by the presiding officer of the polling station, but also polling representatives of candidates present, who act as witnesses of the process.

Thus, Form 45 acts as the most basic record of electoral outcomes in Pakistan. By law, polling stations have to publicly display copies of the form in order to ensure accountability and transparency.

Form declaring ‘unconfirmed results’

After voting is completed and ballots are counted at a polling station, the Presiding Officer fills Form 45 and submits it to the Returning Officer of the constituency. The Returning Officer then gathers and tallies results from Form 45s from every polling station in the constituency to determine the final results.

Prior to official confirmation of final results, Form 47 documents the unconfirmed results in a constituency. This includes the number of votes polled in the constituency, a candidate-wise breakdown of votes, and the number of votes cancelled/rejected. Form 47 is prepared by tallying results obtained from Form 45s.

After all votes are counted and results come in, Forms 48 and 49 publish the full and final vote tallies, and act as official declarations of the election results.

Discrepancy between Form 45 and 47

The two forms have been at the centre of the controversy surrounding poll results in Pakistan.
On election night, various reports said that candidates and their representatives were being denied Form 45s by the presiding officers. PTI expressed serious concerns over non-provision of Form 45 to its polling agents, even after lapse of several hours “seemingly under a malicious plot to change the results”, Pakistan Today reported.

Moreover, the party later claimed that the results tallied in Form 47s, in several cases, showed a major discrepancy with regards to the granular data provided in Form 45s. PTI Secretary General Omar Ayub said on February 11, that the Form 47 (provisional results) of 18 National Assembly seats were “falsely changed”.

Imran Khan, in his AI-generated statement of victory, claimed that PTI won “170 seats” according to Form 45s. Form 47s, however, show PTI-backing independents only winning 93 seats.

These results have now been challenged in Pakistani courts.