Staff Reporter:
The opportunity to register through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app to cast votes by postal ballot in the upcom-ing 13th national elections and referendum will end at 12:00am (midnight) on Monday.
Since its launch on November 18 last year, a total of 14,10,962 voters have registered using the app.
Salim Ahmad Khan, Team Leader of the Out of Country Voting System and Implementation (OCV-SDI) Project, said the registration of such a large number of voters through the app is encouraging and has set an example globally.
He said the app has received a huge response from voters.
“The registration period will not be extended further. Postal ballots have already been sent to 614,703 registered expatriate voters, and ballots will be supplied to all expatriate voters by January 10,” he said.
He added that the target at this stage was to register 15 lakh voters.
Salim Ahmad also said the addresses of around 10,000 voters were found incorrect, and messages have been sent to them requesting submission of correct addresses.
The OCV-SDI project team leader said it is the responsibility of expatriates who have received postal ballots to maintain ballot confidentiality. “If anyone violates confidentiality, their National Identity Card (NID) may be blocked,” he warned.
According to the latest information available on the Election Commission (EC) website as of 10:30am yesterday, a total of 14,10,962 voters have registered.
Among them, 11,95,377 are male voters and 2,15,583 are female voters.
Among expatriate voters, the highest number—2,32,620—registered from Saudi Arabia, followed by 81,369 from Malaysia, 74,862 from Qatar and 52,496 from Oman.
Under the ‘in-country postal vote’ category, 6,62,156 voters have registered within the country.
District-wise, Cumilla recorded the highest number of registrations with 1,05,390 voters, followed by Dhaka with 99,393 and Chattogram with 88,729.
Feni-3 constituency topped seat-wise registration with 15,603 voters, followed by Chattogram-15 with 13,572.
Expatriates from 148 countries are registering through the app using their respective country’s mobile numbers. In addition, voters in legal custody are also eligible to register under this process.
