EC Issues Guidelines: One Box for Every 400 Postal Ballots

The Election Commission (EC) has issued a detailed circular outlining procedures for handling postal ballots in the upcoming 13th national parliamentary election and referendum.

The circular specifies that postal ballots must reach the concerned Returning Officer (RO) by 4:30 pm on polling day, February 12, to be counted. Ballots received after this deadline will not be scanned or counted and will be preserved separately as rejected ballots.

According to the EC, ROs will use one ballot box for every 400 postal ballots. Each box will display a sticker with the constituency number and name. Ballots will begin arriving at RO offices from January 21, the day symbols are allocated, and ballot boxes must be ready immediately.

To ensure transparency, candidates and their election agents will be invited to witness the sealing of each ballot box. Four seals will be affixed initially, with numbers read aloud and recorded, and a fifth seal will secure the box once filled.

Each RO will assign officers to receive, scan, and preserve postal ballots. QR codes printed on envelopes will be scanned to generate constituency-wise lists of received and distributed ballots, with forms signed daily for record-keeping. Any duplicate QR codes detected will result in the ballot being cancelled and preserved separately without opening.

Voters are required to scan the QR code on their envelope using the Postal Vote BD app upon receipt. If a voter returns a ballot without scanning, the vote will be considered invalid but the envelope will be preserved separately with proper documentation.

The circular also outlines the counting process. Each constituency will have one Presiding Officer, one Polling Officer for every 100 ballots, and one Assistant Officer for every 15 Polling Officers. Candidates, polling agents, journalists, and observers are allowed to attend. The RO will notify them in advance about the time and location of counting.

Postal ballots will be counted in a designated room immediately after 4:30 pm on polling day. Presiding Officers will inform attendees of the total number of ballots, open the boxes, and process each envelope. Results will be recorded in Form-16A for the parliamentary election and Form-4 for the referendum, then distributed to candidates, polling officers, agents, and journalists. Consolidated results will be published in Form-18 and Form-7, respectively.

Regarding expatriate voters, Salim Ahmad Khan, Team Leader of the OCV-SDI project, confirmed that most postal ballots have already reached Bangladeshi expatriates. He said 1,533,683 voters, including expatriates, are registered to participate in the upcoming election and referendum.