Postal Vote BD Passes 200,000 Registrations Ahead of 13th National Polls
Registration through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app for the 13th National Election and the national referendum has surpassed the 200,000 milestone, with expatriates from across the world signing up to participate. At the same time, 13,604 applications remained pending, while 187,111 had already been approved.
As of 7:00 pm on Saturday, 6 December, the total number of online registrations had reached 200,631. Among them, 181,418 were male and 19,213 were female voters.
The 13th parliamentary election and the referendum are scheduled for the second half of February, to be held on the same day. For the first time, expatriates are being given the opportunity to vote from abroad. Online registration began on 18 November, and the deadline was extended to 25 December. The second extension further accelerated the registration process.
At the time this report was prepared, Saudi Arabia topped the list with 40,920 registration applications. Of these, 40,739 were men and 215 were women, while 2,819 applications were pending approval.
The United States ranked second with 19,279 applications, of which 833 were awaiting approval. Among the applicants, 13,738 were men and 5,541 were women. Singapore stood third with 11,493 applications.
Notably, the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app is being used by the Election Commission (EC) for the first-ever inclusion of expatriate Bangladeshis in national voting. However, the EC has reported instances of expatriates submitting addresses from countries other than where they currently reside. To prevent this, the system will now immediately block any device used to register with incorrect or mismatched country information.
According to the EC, any attempt to register from one country while providing the address of another will result in the device being blocked. Devices will also be blocked if users repeatedly attempt to register using incorrect mobile numbers. Additionally, VPN-based attempts to mask location or register with foreign addresses will not be accepted.
DBTech/PVD/IH/OR
