Over 7.17 Lakh Register for 13th National Poll

More than 717,000 voters have so far registered to cast their votes in the upcoming 13th national parliament election and referendum through the postal ballot system, according to the Election Commission (EC).

Expatriate Bangladeshis, government officials and employees assigned to election duties, as well as government employees residing outside their designated voting areas, are registering through the Postal Vote BD app.

The EC has already started dispatching postal ballots to expatriate voters across the globe. Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Out of Country Voting System and Implementation (OCV-SDI) project, said ballots were sent to 22,888 expatriate voters in different countries over the past six days.

Data available on the EC website at noon on Thursday shows that 659,356 male and 57,859 female voters have completed registration so far.

Among expatriate voters, Saudi Arabia tops the list with 154,692 registered voters, followed by Qatar with 57,316, Oman with 43,206, Malaysia with 40,333, the United Arab Emirates with 30,662 and the United States with 25,500.

Within Bangladesh, 186,305 voters have registered under the ‘In-Country Postal Vote’ category.

District-wise figures show Cumilla leading with 66,592 registered voters, followed by Dhaka (58,585), Chittagong (57,458), Noakhali (38,118), Sylhet (28,067) and Chandpur (26,356).

At the constituency level, Feni-3 recorded the highest number of registrations with 10,779 voters. Other constituencies with high registration include Chittagong-15 (9,410), Cumilla-10 (8,935) and Noakhali-1 with more than 8,800 registered postal voters.

The EC has been sending ballots in phases to various countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Oman, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea, as well as several European and Middle Eastern nations.

Meanwhile, the registration deadline for postal voting has been extended until December 31, 2025.