Nearly 465,000 expatriates vote, 195,000 postal ballots reach Bangladesh so far

Over 1.53 million voters, both at home and abroad, registered to vote by postal ballot, with expatriates accounting for more than half of the total

Almost 465,000 expatriate Bangladeshis have cast their votes by post, with around 195,000 ballots so far reaching Bangladesh, according to the Election Commission (EC).

Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the commission’s OCV-SDI project, said 194,914 postal ballots had been received as of 11am on Monday.

Data from the postal voting app shows that 464,225 expatriates have already voted. Among them, 418,962 have submitted their ballots to post offices or mailboxes in the countries where they live.

Ahead of the 13th parliamentary election and referendum scheduled for Feb 12, the EC dispatched postal ballots to 766,862 expatriate voters. As of Monday morning, 522,315 expatriates had received their ballots.

The commission has urged voters to return their ballots as soon as possible, noting that only ballots received by returning officers by 4:30pm on polling day in Bangladesh will be counted.

Overall, more than 1.53 million voters, both at home and abroad, registered to vote by postal ballot, with expatriates accounting for more than half of the total.

In addition to expatriate voters, three categories of voters inside Bangladesh are also eligible to vote by post: election officials, government employees working outside their home constituencies, and voters in legal custody.

As of Monday morning, the commission had sent postal ballots to 646,507 voters inside the country.

Of those, 58,797 had collected their ballots, 43,319 had completed voting, and 29,334 had already submitted their ballots to nearby post offices or mailboxes.