Home
+
Published : 10 Feb 2026, 02:16 PM
More than half a million expatriate Bangladeshis have cast their votes by postal ballot in the election and referendum, though fewer than that number have so far reached the Election Commission.
On Tuesday, Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission’s expatriate postal ballot voting project, said 471,957 postal ballots had reached the commission as of 10am.
According to data from the postal ballot app, 512,916 expatriates have cast their ballots, while 502,487 voters have already submitted their completed ballots to post offices or designated mailboxes in their respective countries.
Ahead of the Feb 12 election, the Election Commission dispatched postal ballots to 766,862 expatriate voters.
Of them, 528,233 had received their ballot papers as of Tuesday morning, the commission said.
The Election Commission urged voters who have not yet completed the verification process to do so immediately.
“All respected voters who registered for postal voting but have not yet scanned the QR code are requested to scan the code printed on the envelope by 11:59pm (Bangladesh time) on Tuesday,” the commission said in a statement.
Failure to complete the scan within the deadline will render the ballot invalid, it added.
This year, 1.53 million voters from home and abroad registered for postal voting, with expatriates accounting for more than half of the total.
Within Bangladesh, three categories of voters were eligible to cast ballots through the “Postal Vote BD” app -- officials engaged in election duties, government employees posted outside their constituencies, and voters in legal custody.
The Election Commission said it had sent postal ballots to 760,898 domestic voters by 10am on Tuesday.
Of them, 580,841 had collected their ballots, while 534,376 had completed voting.
However, only 500,408 voters had so far submitted their ballots to post offices or mailboxes.
The commission reiterated that voters should submit their completed ballots as soon as possible to ensure timely delivery.
Only ballots that reach the returning officer’s office by 4:30pm on Feb 12, the polling day, will be counted, it said.
