140,000 expat postal ballots arrive in BD

Staff Reporter :

Nearly 140,000 postal ballots cast by expatriate Bangladeshis have arrived in the country ahead of the 13th parliamentary elections scheduled for February 12.

Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission’s (EC) OCV-SDI project, said that as of 3:30pm on Friday, a total of 139,763 postal ballots had been received.

According to the postal ballot app, 454,587 expatriates have already cast their votes. Of them, 406,564 voters have submitted their ballots to post offices or designated mailboxes in their respective countries.

A referendum on implementing the July Charter will be held simultaneously with the parliamentary polls on February 12. The EC sent postal ballots to 766,862 expatriates, and by Friday afternoon, 516,007 voters had received their ballots.

The EC has urged expatriate voters to cast their votes and submit their ballots to the nearest post office as soon as possible.

A postal ballot will be counted only if it reaches the returning officer by 4:30pm on polling day.
This year, about 1.53 million voters, both at home and abroad, registered to vote by post, with expatriates accounting for more than half of the total.