Bangladesh has nearly 110 million voters on updated electoral roll

The number of voters in Bangladesh has increased to around 110 million after addition of new electors and exclusion of the deceased on the electoral roll in the latest update.

The Election Commission released a draft of the updated list on Monday with nearly 6.76 million new voters. Around 1.4 million others have been dropped after their death.

The ratio of male to female voters now stands at 50.47:49.52.

The rest of the electors, 353 citizens, has been enlisted as Hijra or transgender nationals.

The draft list is available at the EC offices at district, Upazila, union, ward and cantonment board levels.

Anyone can claim a change within Feb 5. The EC will publish the final list on Mar 1 after checking the claims.

The latest round of update has found over 200,000 “dual voters” who tried to get enlisted from two places.

The EC will take legal action against them after review, Mohammad Saidul Islam, chief of the commission’s NID wing, said at a press conference in Dhaka.

He also said no Rohingya refugee was included in the draft list.

The commission had gathered data of more than 9 million citizens to update the list in November last year by registered the prospective voters aged between 15 and 18.

They will be enrolled in the voter list in phases from 2020 to 2022, the EC had said earlier.

Accordingly, as many as 112.5 million citizens will be eligible to cast ballots in the 12th parliamentary elections, up from 104.2 million at the 2018 polls.