For the first time in Bangladesh's electoral history, expatriate voters will cast ballots in a national parliamentary election-by post-potentially reshaping outcomes in migrant-heavy constituencies.
Alongside expatriates, government officials on election duty and people in legal custody will also vote through the postal ballot system.
More than 15 lakh voters have already registered, Election Commission (EC) officials said. In over 100 constituencies, postal voter registration exceeds 5,000, making postal ballots a possible game-changer in tightly fought races.
Although a postal voting provision existed earlier, it was largely ineffective, leaving expatriates and others effectively disenfranchised. To fix this, the current EC-backed by the government-amended the Representation of the People Order (RPO) and rolled out an IT-supported postal voting system.
Under the new process, voters register via the "Postal Vote BD" app. Ballot papers are sent to registered addresses, votes are cast abroad or domestically, and the ballots are mailed back to Bangladesh. Parts of the system are digitally tracked.
EC data show 15,33,682 registered postal voters. Of them, 7,61,140 are government employees on election duty and inmates registered inside the country. The rest are expatriate Bangladeshis.
An EC official said many past elections were decided by margins as slim as 1,000 to 5,000 votes. "In those cases, postal ballots could change the result," the official said.
However, postal ballots will not be counted automatically. They will be included only if the margin between the top two candidates is smaller than the number of postal ballots in that constituency. Otherwise, they will be excluded.
"For example, if the margin is 40 votes and postal ballots exceed that number, they will be counted. If not, they won't," the official explained.
Feni-3 tops the list with 16,093 registered postal voters, followed by Chattogram-15 (14,301), Cumilla-10 (13,977), Noakhali-1 (13,658) and Noakhali-3 (12,829). Several seats in Cumilla, Feni, Noakhali, Sylhet and Chandpur also report heavy registration.
Four constituencies have more than 10,000 postal voters, nine exceed 9,000, and 46 constituencies cross the 5,000 mark. At the other end, Bagerhat-3 has the lowest registration at 1,595 voters.
Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah said 7,67,084 ballot papers have been sent to expatriate voters through the Bangladesh Postal Department. Of these, 7,07,500 have reached destination countries. So far, 1,40,873 voters have received their ballots and scanned the QR codes.
He said 4,521 ballots were returned due to incorrect addresses-mostly from Malaysia.
Sanaullah warned of zero tolerance for fraud. Those involved in postal ballot irregularities will face criminal cases, blocking of national identity cards, and, if needed, repatriation from host countries.
He said ballots for domestic postal voters are yet to be dispatched. Printing and distribution will begin after symbol allocation and publication of the final candidate list on January 21. The EC may also reconsider physical ballot delivery to expatriates if required.
According to the election schedule, January 20 is the last date for withdrawal. Campaigning begins January 22 and runs until 7:30am on February 10. Voting will be held on Thursday, February 12, from 7:30am to 4:30pm.
