B Mirror Report : More than 1.53 million voters have registered to vote by post using the “Postal Vote BD” app for the upcoming 13th Jatiya Sangsad Election and the Referendum.
The Election Commission (EC) said the registration started on November 18 last year and ended at midnight on Monday. All registrations were completed within the time set by the EC.
Out of the total registered voters, 1,281,434 are men and 252,246 are women.
Among Bangladeshi voters living abroad, the highest number registered from Saudi Arabia, with 239,186 voters. Malaysia was second with 84,292 registrations, followed by Qatar with 76,139 and Oman with 56,207.
Within Bangladesh, 761,140 voters registered under the “in-country postal vote” system.
Cumilla district had the highest number of registered voters at 112,090. Dhaka followed with 108,755 voters, and Chattogram had 95,297. In terms of constituencies, Feni-3 had the most registrations with 16,093 voters, followed by Chattogram-15 with 14,301.
The EC said that postal ballots have already been sent to 635,769 overseas voters in at least 81 countries over the past 16 days. Most of these ballots 207,943 were sent to voters in Saudi Arabia.
Salim Ahmad Khan, head of the Out of Country Voting System and Implementation (OCV-SDI) project, said the registration deadline will not be extended because of the strong response from voters. He added that the ballots are expected to reach overseas voters by January 10.
He also reminded voters that keeping their vote secret is their responsibility. If ballot secrecy is broken, the voter’s National Identity Card (NID) may be blocked.
The EC found that around 10,000 voters gave wrong addresses. Text messages have been sent to them asking for correct address details.
Besides overseas voters, government employees, election officials, and other workers who are staying outside their home areas due to job postings also registered through the app. Voters in legal custody were also allowed to register.
The “Postal Vote BD” app was launched on November 18 and allowed Bangladeshi voters in 148 countries to register using local mobile numbers.
