EC gets more voters than expected

The Election Commission has found several hundreds of thousands of voters over its estimates as it is updating the voter roll leaving out fake voters. However, the EC’s National Identity Registration Division is saying this is ‘normal’. The current electoral roll lists 91,950,641 voters. With an estimated five per cent increase in voters, the EC had prepared for an additional 4.6 million voters. But 4,829,996 additional people have so far been enrolled in the update. The number of registered absent voters is 873,505. Adding these up, the number of new voters reaches about 5.6 million. If they are finally entered into the voter roll the voting age population will be about 97 million, over 61pc of the population. National Identity Registration Division Director General Brig Gen Sultanuzzaman said, ‘It’s not unnatural for the number of new voters to exceed the estimate. We’re putting more emphasis on no person in the voting age getting left behind.’ He said the 1st draft of the list will be published in January and the final list after resolving all objections, according to bdnews24.com.