Over 0.33m expats register to vote in JS polls

A total of 3,30,946 Bangladeshi expatriates have registered through the Postal Vote BD app to vote in the 13th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) Election and the national referendum, the Election Commission (EC) said, reports BSS.
Of them, 3, 06,908 are male and 24,038 are female.
Country-wise, the highest number of registrations came from Saudi Arabia (91,803), followed by Qatar (29,000), the UAE (21,747), the USA (21,165), Malaysia (20,886), Singapore (16,664), Oman (14,935), the UK (14,337), and Italy (10,576).
Other countries include Canada (9,993), South Korea (9,623), Kuwait (9,019), Australia (8,279), and Japan (7,105). Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Out-of-Country Voting System and Implementation (OCV-SDI) Project, said that the number of registrants may reach 500,000to 600,000 given the current pace. "Every week, we coordinate with ambassadors or mission heads of different countries. Since independence, no one has done this for every embassy in such a manner," he added.
He further said the EC has extended address-correction services to seven countries-Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain-until 9 am (Bangladesh time) on December 14.
"This ensures expatriate voters provide accurate addresses, which is essential to receive postal ballots," the OCV-SDI team leader continued.
Government employees on election duty or residing outside their constituencies can register through the app until December 25. Voters in lawful custody can register from December 21 to December 25. Android users can already download the app, while iPhone users are expected to gain access after the election schedule is announced.