A total of 379,924 postal ballots sent by expatriate voters have so far arrived in Bangladesh as part of the postal voting process for the upcoming 13th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) election and referendum.

Salim Ahmad Khan, OCV-SDI project team leader on expatriate voter registration, said the ballots were sent by Bangladeshi expatriates registered through the “Postal Vote BD” app. He noted that the inflow of ballots is continuing as overseas voters complete the process from different countries.

As of 9:30am today, 766,862 ballots had been dispatched to registered expatriate voters, according to BSS. Of these, 526,008 voters have already received their ballots, while 480,416 have cast their votes. In addition, 444,952 expatriates have submitted their completed ballots to postal authorities in their respective countries.

Election officials said that returning officers have so far received 107,168 of those overseas ballots, with more expected to arrive in the coming days as international mail continues to be processed.

Alongside expatriate voters, the Election Commission (EC) has also rolled out postal voting for voters residing within the country under the In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV) system. So far, ballots have been sent to 662,191 registered voters across Bangladesh.

According to the latest EC data, 260,447 domestic voters have received their ballots. Among them, 211,122 have cast their votes and 168,519 have submitted their ballots through post offices or mailboxes. Returning officers have received 27,367 ballots from inside the country so far.

Salim Ahmad Khan added that a total of 1,533,684 voters at home and abroad have registered through the Postal Vote BD app to participate in the 13th JS election and the accompanying referendum, marking a significant expansion of postal voting in Bangladesh’s electoral process.

BOB Post