Training for polling officers for general election, referendum begins Jan 22

More than 800,000 officials will be trained locally to manage voting, counting and results on a single polling day

Training for presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and polling officers for the parliamentary polls and the referendum will begin across Bangladesh on Jan 22.

The Election Training Institute (ETI) Director General Muhammad Hasanuzzaman said the programme would cover electoral laws, rules and overall poll management for more than 800,000 personnel.

The training will continue until Feb 7, he added.

Polling for the general election and referendum will be held on Feb 12 from 7:30am to 4:30pm without a break.

The training will cover how the same officials will conduct and manage two separate ballots on the same day.

The national election involves nearly 130 million voters. Voting will take place at around 43,000 polling centres with about 250,000 polling booths across the country.

Election Commission officials said each centre requires one presiding officer, one assistant presiding officer per booth and two polling officers per booth, bringing the total to about eight to 10 polling officials per centre.

Additional personnel are also kept on standby. Overall, more than 800,000 polling officials are required.

Panels are prepared with 10 percent more personnel than the required number of polling officials to address any last-minute needs.

A total of 69 returning officers, 499 assistant returning officers, more than 1,000 executive magistrates and over 300 judicial magistrates will be deployed.

Previously, divisional commissioners, police commissioners, deputy inspectors general of police, deputy commissioners, superintendents of police, returning officers, executive magistrates and judicial magistrates, along with other election-related officials, were briefed in phases on election management at the ETI in Dhaka.

Polling officers, however, are trained at the local level.

The presiding officer is responsible for overall management at each polling centre. All election officers must work under the presiding officer’s instructions, and law enforcers must also follow orders.

Officers will be trained on all duties, legal provisions and responsibilities before, during and after voting, including vote counting, result preparation, and handling election materials, as well as the roles of polling agents.

“Training of trainers has already been completed centrally. Field-level training for polling officials will now be carried out,” Hasanuzzaman said.

After the submission, scrutiny and appeal hearings of nomination papers, there are slightly more than 2,250 valid candidates. The deadline for withdrawal of candidacy is Jan 20, after which the final number of contestants will be confirmed.

Candidates will be allocated election symbols on Jan 21. Campaigning will run from Jan 22 to Feb 10.