The Election Commission has extended the registration time by five days till January 5 next for expatriates and other entitled voters to vote through the postal ballots during the upcoming national election and referendum, slated for February 12, 2026.
“Now the deadline for the postal ballot registration is December 31. But the time for postal ballot registration has extended to January 5. The registration will be closed at 12:00am after January 5 Midnight,” EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed told journalists at Nirbachan Bhaban in the capital.
He said the time was extended on requests from the expatriates and the entitled voters from inside the country. This is the first time the Election Commission has introduced an effective IT-supported hybrid postal balloting system, enabling expatriates, government staff who are posted outside their respective constituencies, polling personnel, and the persons who will be in the legal custody to exercise their franchise through a combination of digital registration and manual voting.
The Election Commission opened the ‘Postal Vote Bd’ app for the Out-of-Country Voting (OCV) on November 19 and for the In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV) on December 17.
More than one million eligible voters including some 631,000 expatriates registered their names to vote through the postal ballots in the upcoming national election and the referendum, scheduled to be held simultaneously on February 12, 2026.
A total of 1,082,541 voters, including 137,317 females registered through the ‘Postal Vote Bd’ app till 8:38pm on Tuesday. Among the 450,632 voters who registered from inside the country, as many as 367,248 are government employees, 72,512 solely polling personnel, 5,842 Ansar and VDP members and 5,030 prisoners. Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin on December 11 last announced the schedule to arrange the 13th parliamentary election and the referendum on the July National Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order simultaneously on February 12 next.
According to the election schedule, the deadline for the submission of nomination papers was December 29, while the last date for the withdrawal of candidature is January 20. The election campaign will start on January 22 and continue till 48 hours before the balloting period (7:30am on February 10).