Bangladesh Election: 740,000 registered for postal voting

The Election Commission (EC) opened the 'Postal Vote Bd' app for the Out-of-Country Voting (OCV) on Nov 19 and for the In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV) on Dec 17.

"The 'Postal Vote Bd' app will remain open for the registration of all entitled voters till Dec 31," said EC Secretariat Director (Public Relations) Ruhul Amin Mollik on Thursday.

Though the postal balloting system has been in the law for a long time, it was never practised in the previous elections.

This is the first time the EC has introduced an effective IT-supported hybrid postal balloting system, enabling expatriates, government staff who are posted outside their respective constituencies, polling personnel, and the persons who will be in the legal custody to exercise their franchise through a combination of digital registration and manual voting.

As of 7.05 pm (local time) on Thursday, a total of 740,412 voters were registered to vote through postal ballots in the Feb 12 elections.

Among them, 205,942 voters were registered from Bangladesh, while 534,470 expatriates from different countries across the world.

Among the expatriate registrants, the highest number came from the Saudi Arabia (155,535) followed by Qatar (57,521), Oman (43,484), Malaysia (41,469), United Arab Emirates (30,713), United States (25,557), Kuwait (22,975), United Kingdom (21,299) and Singapore (17,471).

Next, Italy (15,232), Canada (11,990), Bahrain (11,422), South Korea (10,159), Australia (9,405), Japan (7,475), Maldives (6,968), France (5,783), Portugal (5,320), South Africa (5,110), Germany (4,392), Spain (2,532), China (1,905), Finland (1,713), Poland (1,617), Brunei (1,317), Sweden (1,229) and Ireland (1,137).

According to the election schedule, the deadline for the submission of nomination papers is Dec 29, while the last date for the withdrawal of candidature is Jan 20.

The election campaign will start on Jan 22 and continue till 48 hours before the balloting period (7.30 am on Feb 10).