Expatriate Bangladeshi voters have begun returning their postal ballots for the 13th Jatiya Sangsad election and the referendum, with nearly 140,000 ballots already arriving in the country, election officials have said.
Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the OCV-SDI Project overseeing expatriate voter registration, said on Friday night that a total of 139,763 postal ballots sent by voters living abroad have so far been received in Bangladesh.
According to official figures, 766,862 ballot papers had been dispatched to expatriate voters by 3:30 pm on Friday through the “Postal Vote BD” mobile application. Of these, 516,007 voters have received their ballots. A total of 454,587 expatriates have cast their votes, while 406,564 have already submitted their completed ballots at post offices or designated letter boxes overseas.
Postal voting has also been extended to voters residing within Bangladesh who registered through the same application. The Election Commission said ballot papers were sent to around 269,000 domestic voters under the in-country postal voting system.
By the same deadline on Friday afternoon, 3,748 domestic voters had received their ballots, 2,422 had cast their votes and 1,149 had submitted their completed ballots to post offices or letter boxes.
Mr Khan said that overall, 1,533,684 voters both at home and abroad registered through the “Postal Vote BD” app to take part in the upcoming parliamentary election and the referendum.
Election officials say the postal voting initiative is aimed at increasing participation among expatriates and eligible voters unable to attend polling stations in person, as Bangladesh prepares for one of its largest electoral exercises.
