Expats’ voter reg for 7 states likely to reopen today: EC

The Election Commission (EC) plans to resume Out-of-Country voter registration today (Friday) for Bangladeshi expatriates in seven countries after it was suspended due to incorrect or incomplete mailing addresses submitted by many applicants, report agencies.

The seven countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"We are working to reopen it by tomorrow (Friday) morning. So that expatriate voters can take advantage of Friday, which is a holiday, InshaAllah. We are trying to re-launch the app for these seven countries as soon as possible," said Team leader of EC's Out of Country Voting (OCV) development and implementation (SDI) project Brig Gen (retd) Saleem Ahmad Khan at a press briefing in the city's Nirbachan Bhaban on Thursday.

Speaking at the briefing, EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed said they still are optimistic about the registration of a good number of expatriate voters.

"The expectations for the inclusion of expatriate Bangladeshi voters for OCV, which were high, are still high. One thing is that when the new system is rolled out, there will be minor problems. Campaigning is also going on regarding this," he said.

As of 8:00 pm on Thursday, a total of 58,563 expatriates-49,777 males and 8,786 females-had registered through the app.