Election Commission publishes voter list of 100 million people

The Election Commission has published the updated voter list of almost 100 million people.

EC spokesperson SM Asaduzzaman on Sunday said the ratio of male and female voters remained almost the same.
 
According to the updated list, Bangladesh now has a total of 99,898,553 voters, including the 4,432,927 added in January 2016.
 
After the recent amendments, the list has 50,320,362 male voters – that’s 50.37 percent of the total number of voters -- and 49,578,191 female voters, which is 49.63 percent of the total.
 
The updated voter list has deducted 735,871 names of people who have died in recent years.
 
A total of 96,201,497 people were in the voter list before it was updated.
 
The EC initiated the process to create the updated voter list with photos in 2008. National ID cards were provided to more than 81 million citizens during that process.
 
A ‘Smart Card’ with an electronic chip instead of the old laminated card for every citizen is also in the pipeline.
 
Last year, the government decided to include citizens aged between 15 and 17 under the NID registration process. So far, over 6.7 million citizens have been enlisted.
 
According to the EC, once registered, these citizens will automatically be included in the electoral roll in January each year once they are 18 years old.