More than one million people, including expatriates have cast their votes through postal ballots till Monday night under ‘Out-of-Country Voting (OCV) and ‘In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV)’ project in the referendum and 13th parliamentary election scheduled to be held on Thursday (February 12).
A total of 1,035,687 people, including 512,331 expatriates from more than 120 countries across the world, voted through postal ballots till 9pm on Monday, according to the statistics of the Election Commission.
The people who already voted through the postal ballots also include 523,356 government employees working outside their constituencies, polling officials and prisoners.
Among the 512,331 expatriates, the highest 158,731 Bangladeshis cast votes through postal ballots from Saudi Arab, while 49,569 from Qatar, 48,291 ones from Malaysia, 45,274 from Oman, 23,877 from United Arab Emirates (UAE), 25,963 from Kuwait, 22,016 from UK, 17,547 from the USA, 16,828 from Bahrain, 14,103 from Italy, 12,253 from Singapore and 10,200 from Canada.
The highest 62,708 expatriates cast votes in Cumilla district, while 49,732 in Chattogram, 46,344 in Dhaka, 33,860 in Noakhali, 23,645 in Chandpur and 23,127 in Sylhet.
The Election Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, introduced an IT-supported hybrid postal balloting system, combining digital registration with manual voting, for expatriate Bangladeshis living in more than 120 countries for the first time.
The new postal balloting system is also being used by government employees working outside their constituencies, polling officials and individuals under legal custody within the country.
A total of 1,528,131 voters, including 767,233 expatriates under OCV programme and 760,898 government officials, polling personnel and prisoners under ICPV programme, were registered for postal voting.
A total of 127,298,522 voters (in 299 constituencies) are eligible to cast their ballots in this election. Of them, 64,620,077 are male voters, 62,677,232 are female voters and 1,213 are third-gender voters.
The country has a total of 127,711,899 voters (in 300 constituencies) –64,825,154 males, 62,885,525 females and 1,220 third-gender.
The Election Commission announced the election schedule on December 11 last year to hold the 13th parliamentary election and the referendum on the July National Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order simultaneously on February 12, 2026.