Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah on Thursday said the Election Commission (EC) has found no evidence of any irregularities in the postal ballots sent to expatriate Bangladeshis abroad reviewing several video clips circulating on social media regarding the distribution of postal ballots.
“So far, we’ve received video clips from three locations…. The Commission examined them very seriously, but no evidence of any deviation has been found in those videos,” Sanaullah said.
The election commissioner made the remarks while briefing reporters at Nirbachan Bhaban in the city on Thursday evening.
He said some political parties have already expressed reactions over the issue, prompting the Commission to take immediate steps to verify the matter. “To understand the actual situation, we contacted all the relevant embassies today.”
Sanaullah said the EC will not make any compromise with the integrity of the postal balloting system. “There will be no leniency for anyone concerning postal ballots,” he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, BNP raised concerns before the Election Commission over the viral videos related to the distribution of postal ballots sent to expatriates.
The Election Commissioner said a total of 767,084 postal ballots were dispatched for the expatriate voters. Of them, 707,500 ballots have already reached the destinations in different countries and 59,584 others are on transition. Based on QR code scans, around 140,873 expatriate voters have already received their ballots.
He said some ballots have been returned undelivered due to incorrect addresses in foreign lands. So far, 4,521 ballots have been returned, mostly from Malaysia, followed by Italy.
Sanaullah said a large number of expatriate voters use shared addresses due to living in limited accommodation without individual mailing addresses, particularly in labour-intensive destinations in the Middle East and Malaysia.
Some 171,680 voters used an address shared by two voters, while 95,816 voters used addresses shared by up to five voters, 59,276 voters used addresses shared by up to 10 voters, 38,109 voters used addresses shared by up to 20 voters, 21,915 voters used addresses shared by 20 to 50 voters, 14,891 voters used addresses shared by 100 or more voters, he said.