NN ONLINE:
The Election Commission is going to conduct a mock voting exercise on Saturday next for both the upcoming national election and referendum, which are likely to be held simultaneously on a single day in early February 2026.
“The mock voting will be held from 8:00am to 12:00pm on Saturday at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Girls High School in the capital,” said EC Director (PR) Ruhul Amin Mollik on Tuesday.
All the officers and employees of the EC Secretariat, the EC’s National Identity Registration Wing, the Electoral Training Institute (ETI) and its all projects have been asked to be present in the mock voting centre and participate in the mock voting activities as voters.
The Election Commission has planned to announce the schedule in early December to arrange the 13th parliamentary election and the referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously in a single day in February 2026.
According to the EC officials, the Commission will assess how many votes can be cast in an hour using two types of ballots – one for national election and another for referendum—in order to determine the number of voters against each polling booth in the February 2026 election. Besides, the EC will try to identify the possible challenges that may emerge during the vote-casting in the upcoming election.
The current Election Commission, headed by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, was constituted just one year ago and had no experience of holding a single local body or parliamentary election.
Besides, this commission will have to hold a referendum simultaneously with the national election, which came as an additional responsibility to the current commission amid the changed situation after the 2024 student-led mass uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s regime.
