A total of 373,398 expatriate voters across various countries have received postal ballots to participate in Bangladesh’s upcoming 13th National Parliamentary Election and referendum, according to the Election Commission (EC). Among them, 196,625 voters have already scanned their QR codes. The EC stated that these registered overseas voters will be able to cast their votes and send them back to Bangladesh after the allocation of election symbols on January 21.

Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the ‘OCV-SDI’ project on expatriate voter registration, confirmed that 5,126 ballots were returned to Bangladesh due to incorrect addresses or voters not being found at their listed locations. Earlier, the EC had completed sending postal ballots to 767,028 expatriate voters in 121 countries.

According to EC data, a total of 1,533,683 voters, both domestic and overseas, have registered through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app. Election officials noted that after symbol allocation, expatriates must send their completed ballots by mail to the respective returning officers’ offices in Bangladesh.