Dhaka: A total of 5,75,269 voters have so far registered to exercise their franchise in the 13th National Parliament election and the referendum through the “Postal Vote BD” app. Bangladeshis living abroad, along with government employees on election duty and away from their own constituencies, are registering through the app to cast their votes by post. Meanwhile, the Election Commission (EC) has begun dispatching postal ballots to registered expatriate voters.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, postal ballots have already been sent to 71,953 expatriate voters across 15 countries during Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, as stated by Saleem Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Out of Country Voting (OCV) System Development and Implementation (SDI) project. As per the postal voting update published on the EC website as of 11:30 am today (Monday), 575,269 voters have registered through the “Postal Vote BD” app so far. Among them, 538,808 are male voters and 36,459 are female voters.
Among expatriate voters, Saudi Arabia recorded the highest number of registrations with 138,705 voters, followed by Qatar with 52,109, Oman 38,099, Malaysia 36,427, the United Arab Emirates 26,500, the United States 24,055, Kuwait 20,143, the United Kingdom 18,875, Singapore 17,088, Italy 13,954, and Canada 11,246 voters. Meanwhile, 93,932 Bangladeshi voters currently residing inside the country have registered under the in-country postal voting category through the app as of 11:30 am today.
District-wise registration shows Cumilla topping the list with 58,016 registered voters, followed by Dhaka with 49,426, Chattogram with 48,330, Noakhali with 33,297, Sylhet with 24,075, and Chandpur with 22,773 voters. Constituency-wise registration reveals the highest number of registrations in Feni-3 constituency with 9,003 voters, followed by Chattogram-15 with 8,255, Noakhali-1 with 7,868, Cumilla-10 with 7,767, and Noakhali-3 with 7,404 registered voters.
Saleem Ahmad Khan mentioned that the Election Commission will allocate election symbols to candidates on January 21. Once symbol allocation is completed, voters will be informed through the app or the Election Commission’s website.