Over 55,000 expatriate postal ballots reach Bangladesh ahead of election

Officials caution votes will only be counted if they reach the returning officer by 4:30pm in Bangladesh on Feb 12

More than 55,000 postal ballots cast by expatriate Bangladeshis have reached the country ahead of the Feb 12 general election.

On Thursday, Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission’s OCV-SDI project, said 55,341 postal ballots had arrived in Bangladesh as of 10:30am.

He added that a total of 445,588 expatriates have voted so far.

Of them, 394,174 have already submitted their ballots to post offices or designated mailboxes in their respective countries after casting their votes.

The Election Commission has sent postal ballots to 766,862 expatriates ahead of the upcoming polls.

Of that number, 509,601 voters had received their ballots by Thursday morning.

The commission has urged expatriate voters to complete the process “as soon as possible” and submit their ballots to the nearest post office.

Officials cautioned that votes will only be counted if they reach the returning officer by 4:30pm on polling day in Bangladesh.

This year, about 1.53 million voters from home and abroad registered to vote by post, more than half of whom are expatriates.

Alongside overseas Bangladeshis, three categories of voters within the country have also registered through the “Postal Vote BD” app -- people engaged in election duties, government employees working outside their registered constituencies, and voters in legal custody.