EC plans online nat’l election results

The Election Commission has planned to use information technology in the 11th national election to collect polls results from every polling centre and thus bring dynamism in the election process, reports UNB.

To collect the election results directly from every polling centre through online, the Commission has planned to provide the presiding officers with tablet computers and update the existing election result software, official sources said.

If the plan is finally implemented, they said, the unofficial election results of most of the country's 300 constituencies can be announced within two to three hours of the conclusion of voting.

The EC's 'Committee for Use of Information Technology in National Identity, Electoral Roll and Election Management' prepared the proposal at its recent meeting held with committee chief and Election Commissioner Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury in the chair. Later, the proposal was endorsed at the Commission's meeting held with Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda in the chair.

In the 2014 national election, the Commission indirectly collected centre-wise election results. But it was a lengthy process as the presiding officers of every centre had to come in person to the offices of assistant returning officers concerned to submit the results.

After the complication, the centre-wise results were given in the EC's software and the returning officers announced the unofficial results easily using the software.

The committee now has planned to avoid this lengthy process by collecting election result directly from the presiding officers through the use of tablets just immediately after the completion of vote counting.