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Published : 09 Sep 2025, 06:53 PM
Votes are being counted by machine in the DUCSU election, which ended without any major incidents.
Polls opened at 8am and closed at 4pm, but it took another 45 minutes for the vote counting process to start. All eight polling centres began counting votes after 5pm.
Students at the university cast their votes on six-page Optical Mark Recognition sheets. The ballots are being counted using 14 ballot counting machines. Some of them can scan 5,000 pages in an hour, while others can scan up to 8,000.
At the University Laboratory School and College polling centre, ballot boxes were opened at 5:15pm. The ballots were then organised for feeding into the machine. However, a technical glitch caused a 45-minute delay in the count.
Journalists and the agents of different candidates were then able to manually check whether the machine was checking ballots properly.
Returning Officer Shahidul Jahid, Shamsunnahar Hall Provost Nasrin Sultana, and other officials are present at the scene.
The vote count is also being broadcast live on a big screen outside the centre.
DUCSU POLLS AT A GLANCE
• A total of 39,874 voters can cast their ballots in the DUCSU election
• 18,959 female students from the girls’ residential halls, and 20,915 male students from the 13 boys’ residential halls can vote in the polls
• 471 candidates are duking it out for the 28 DUCSU posts
• 13 hall parliament seats are available at each of the 18 halls, for a total of 234 hall parliament seats
• 1,035 candidates are vying for these hall parliament seats
• Ten panels have put together lists of candidates for different positions, while many other candidates are running independently.
• Five student representatives nominated by DUCSU become members of the university’s highest policy-making forum, the senate.
• The DUCSU election is being held after six years. According to the Dhaka University Ordinance of 1973, DUCSU and hall parliament elections are supposed to be held every year. However, the university, which has already celebrated its centenary, has only held student parliament elections 38 times so far.
• Of these, 29 times were during the 50 years under British and Pakistani rule. Dhaka University students voted for the ninth time in the 55 years of independence on Tuesday.
