Commissioner Aurangzeb, speaking at an Independent Election Commission press conference on Sunday, said that electoral materials and biometric devices from all 34 provinces have been received “without incident,” although some devices are missing.

Aurangzeb did not give the exact number of missing devices, but offered to provide further updates, adding: “We have less missing materials in this presidential election than the last one.”

He said those election workers who failed to return devices will face questioning by the attorney general and a suspended salary.\

Aurangzeb stated that any votes verified through missing machines will not be counted, according to the law.

(Concerns have been raised over the vulnerability of the biometric devices to fraud, as some claim the time settings can be changed to allow for fraudulent vote inputs passing for election-day inputs.)

It is the IEC policy to tally only those votes verified by biometric systems.

“Only biometric votes will be counted. Our system can differentiate between biometric votes and non-biometric votes, and after our sorting process we will have a number of legitimate votes,” Aurangzeb said.