Staff Reporter:
Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam yesterday said that a total of 15,33, 682 voters have registered for casting their votes through postal ballots as registration for postal vote ended on Monday.
“A total of 15,33, 682 voters have registered for casting their votes through postal ballots. Of them, 761,140 are from within the country and 772,542 are members of the Bangladeshi diaspora,” he said at a briefing at the Foreign Service Academy this evening.
The voters inside the country registered for postal ballots because they will be on election duty and unable to vote at their designated polling stations, he said, adding, the members of Bangladeshi diaspora are going to participate in the process for the first time.
The press secretary said the country has witnessed an unprecedented response to its first-ever online postal ballot registration, marking a significant step toward inclusive and participatory elec-tions, particularly for expatriate voters.
He said Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus termed the response as “a historic event”.
Noting that while the global inclusion rate for diaspora voting in countries with long-standing sys-tems averages 2.7 percent, Shafiqul Alam said Bangladesh has surpassed 5 percent in its very first year.
The Election Commission’s postal voting model is now being closely observed by international stakeholders, including the European Union, UNDP, and several European countries, he added.
The press secretary said that the Election Commission has stated that postal ballots will be sent and vote casting starting from January 21, once the final list of candidates is confirmed.
