Dhaka – Bangladesh’s election authorities have received some 379,924 postal ballots from expatriate voters for the upcoming parliamentary election and a concurrent national referendum, an official said on Thursday.
This marks the first time the Election Commission has facilitated voting by postal ballot for citizens living abroad. The 13th parliamentary election, scheduled for February 12, will be the first since a violent uprising ousted the government of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024.
The authorities are also holding a referendum on the same day, seeking public approval for widespread state reforms. These proposed changes include constitutional and administrative amendments, as well as granting legitimacy to actions taken by the interim administration following the uprising.
Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the OCV-SDI project on expatriate voter registration, told the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sanstha news agency that about 766,862 ballots have been dispatched to registered expatriates. Of these, 526,008 have been delivered, and 480,416 voters have already cast their votes.
Furthermore, 444,952 expatriate voters have submitted their completed ballots to local post offices in their respective countries. Returning officers in Bangladesh have so far received 107,168 of these.
Domestically, the Election Commission is conducting postal voting under the In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV) system. Ballots have been sent to 662,191 registered voters within Bangladesh.
According to the latest EC data, 260,447 have received their ballots, 211,122 have cast their votes, and 168,519 have returned them to post offices. Returning officers have received 27,367 domestic postal ballots to date.
Khan added that a total of 1,533,684 voters, both at home and abroad, have registered to vote by post.
