Overseas Pakistanis can swing elections in 20 hotly-contested constituencies

• Nearly 0.7 million overseas voters registered in 20 important NA constituencies, Geo News finds.
• Geo News takes up important constituencies from four districts to investigate how overseas voters can influence upcoming polls.
• The four districts are Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Sialkot.

ISLAMABAD: Almost 0.7 million overseas voters are registered in 20 hotly-contested constituencies, where the margin of victory was quite narrow in the 2018 general elections, as Geo News seeks to figure out the possible impact of overseas voters in the upcoming polls.

In a first, Geo News obtained access to official statistics, which showed that 20 important districts of Pakistan collectively host over 0.7 million overseas voters who could swing the elections in favour of any particular party in many constituencies, according to the official figures. 

In these constituencies, as many as 8.1 million voters are registered.

Almost 10 million Pakistani nationals have a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP), which makes them eligible to the right to vote in upcoming elections from nearly 200 countries.