Expatriates send nearly 140,000 postal ballots home

Expatriates registered through the “Postal Vote BD” app to cast their votes in the 13th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) election and the referendum have begun sending back their ballots.

So far, 139,763 expatriate ballots have arrived in the country, said Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the OCV-SDI project on expatriate voter registration, on Friday night, BSS reports.

He said a total of 766,862 ballot papers were dispatched to expatriate voters’ addresses by 3:30 pm on Friday. Of them, 516,007 voters received their ballots, 454,587 cast their votes, and 406,564 submitted their ballots to post offices or letter boxes abroad.

Alongside expatriates, postal ballots were also distributed among voters residing inside Bangladesh. The Election Commission (EC) said postal ballots were sent to 269,000 voters registered within the country (ICPV) through the “Postal Vote BD” app. By 3:30 pm on Friday, 3,748 voters had received their ballots, 2,422 had cast their votes, and 1,149 had submitted their ballots to post offices or letter boxes.

Salim Ahmad Khan added that a total of 1,533,684 voters at home and abroad registered through the app to participate in the 13th JS election and the referendum.