The Election Commission on Monday started receiving applications for settling the objections to the draft of the updated voter list . The Commission informed that they will receive applications till January 31 andsettle the objections within February 7. Read more: Voter numbers increased by 57.74 lakh in draft list: EC The total number of voters in the country is now over 11.50 crore as the Election Commission on Sunday released a draft of the updated voter list with 57.74 lakh new voters. The total number of voters in the final voter list published on March 2 last year was 11,32,87,010 which has increased to 11,90,61,158 this year. The total voter growth rate this time stands at 5.10 percent. In a letter sent by the Election Commission to the field level officials on December 11 last, everyone was instructed to send the draft list on January 15. Every year the draft list is published on January 2 but this time it did not happen. There is a provision to update the voter list from January 2 to March 2 as per the voter list rules, EC officials said. Read more: EC: Updated draft voter list to be published on Jan 15 According to the provision, the final list is published on March 2 after settling the objections to the draft list. This time, the release of the draft voter list has been delayed, but the schedule of the final list will remain unchanged.

The Election Commission will publish the draft of an updated voter list on January 15. According to a letter sent to all election officers at local level on Monday, the date has been delayed 13 days from the usual date of January 2 for publishing the voter list. The letter signed by Assistant Secretary of Election Commissioner Md Mosharraf Hossain, said the upazila level election officers will publish the voter list of respective areas on January 15. The decision of renewing the voter list was taken immediately after Kazi Habibul Awal was appointed as Chief Election Commissioner on February 26 this year. Read more: 5 BNP MPs’ resignation: Election to vacant seats within 90 days, EC says After 2019, the updating of voters’ lists began this year by collecting information from every house for three weeks. Inclusion of new voters, exclusion of deceased and transferring those who changed location was done during the process. Information of those who were born before January 1, 2007, and are eligible to become voters was collected. After that photo, fingerprint and iris identification information were collected at designated registration centers. Read more: Next general election to be held first week of 2024: PM Hasina announces at Cox’s Bazar rally After resolving the objections about the draft list the final list will be published in March next year and the enlisted voters will be eligible to vote for 12th parliamentary election. Currently there are 11,32,87,010 voters in the country and of them 5,76,89,529 are men 5,55,97,027 women and 454 are transgender.