Postal ballots of 380,000 expatriates reach Bangladesh

Postal ballots have been sent to 766,862 expatriates ahead of the parliamentary election and referendum

Nearly 380,000 postal ballots cast by expatriate Bangladeshis have reached the country so far.

Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission’s Out of Country Voting (OCV) System Development and Implementation (SDI) Project, said that 379,924 postal ballots had arrived as of 9:30am on Thursday.

According to the postal ballot app, 480,416 expatriates have already voted. Of these, 444,952 have cast their votes and submitted their ballots to the post offices or mailboxes in their respective countries.

The Election Commission (EC) has sent out postal ballots to a total of 766,862 expatriates ahead of the 13th parliamentary election and referendum on Feb 12. As of Friday afternoon, 526,008 expatriates had received their ballots.

The EC had asked them to cast their votes “as soon as possible” and submit them to the nearest post office.

The ballots will only be counted if they reach the returning officer of the relevant constituency by 4:30pm Bangladesh time on Feb 12.

This time, over 1.53 million voters at home and abroad have registered to vote by postal ballot. More than half of them are expatriates.

In addition to expatriate Bangladeshis, voters engaged in electoral duties, government employees working outside their constituency, and voters in legal custody (prison) have the opportunity to vote by postal ballot.

The EC has sent postal ballots to 662,191 voters in the country as of Thursday morning.

Of these, 260,447 voters have collected their ballots, 211,122 have finished voting, and 168,519 have sent their ballots to the nearest post office or mailbox after voting.