Election Commission worried over names of dead people remaining on updated voter list

The names of 500,000 to 700,000 dead people will remain in the updated voter list, fears the Election Commission.

The commission says it has got information on only about 700,000 dead voters, about half the number it expected.

The EC blamed field workers for the flaw.

A house-to-house survey to update the voters’ list across the country had begun on July 25.

The gathering of information in 514 Upazilas ended on Sep 22. The rest will be completed in February 2016.

EC Secretary Md Sirazul Islam told bdnews24.com: “Of course we are concerned as the number of dead voters is much less than expected, especially in Dhaka and Chittagong.

“We’ve asked the field workers to update the information by going door to door again,” he said.

“The number could not have been so small had the data been collected properly. From 2008 onwards, we have been dropping the names of 400,000 to 500,000 dead voters from the list every year,” he added.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Joint Director AKM Fazlul Haque agreed with Secretary Islam.

He said the number of deceased voters should be over a million each year in the light of the mortality rate - six in 1,000 per year. Bangladesh’s population is over 160 million at present.

The EC secretary also said the inconsistency would cost the commission millions of taka.

“We’ll issue smart cards. Every card will cost over Tk 150. In that case, millions of taka will be wasted if 500,000 to 700,000 dead voters remain on the list,” he said.