Voting concluded in the 12th parliamentary election on Sunday afternoon amid allegations of irregularities, ballot stuffing and sporadic violence in different parts of the country, leaving two people dead in Munshiganj and Cumilla and a number of people injured.The polling that began at 8:00 am concluded at 4pm without any break amid tight security in 299 out of the country’s 300 constituencies. The counting of votes started immediately after the end of voting. Voting was postponed in three polling centers due to violence, capturing of polling stations and ballot stuffing. Groups shouting ‘anti-election slogans’ blast cocktails in front of 2 Sylhet polling stationsAwami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cast her vote at Dhaka City College in the capital this morning.Election Commission Secretary Jahangir Alam on Sunday said 27.15 % votes were cast till 3 pm on Sunday.He shared this information at a press conference held at the Agargaon Election Commission (EC) building. Election 2024: 18.5% votes cast in 4 hours, says EC secretaryOf the total vote, 25 percent votes were cast in Dhaka, 27% in Chattogram, 32% in Khulna, 22% in Sylhet, 29 % in Mymensingh, 26% in Rajshahi, 26 % in Rangpur and 31% in Barishal, he said.Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said he is not thinking about voter turnout and his job is to arrange the elections.UNB correspondents from Dhaka and different districts including Dinajpur, Chattogram, Bhola, Chapainawabganj and Khulna reported low voter turnout in the morning.Lower-than-expected voter turnout was also observed in Cumilla, Bagerhat, Barishal and Habiganj in the first half of the election day.A supporter of the Awami League candidate was stabbed to death allegedly by supporters of the independent candidate at Tengor in Mirkadim of Munshiganj’s Sadar upazila this morning.Besides, Noab Ali, 60, a supporter of Awami League-candidate for Cumilla-4 Razee Mohammad Fakhrul was found dead near a polling centre at Kasharikhola in Debidwar upazila of Cumilla district on Sunday. Cent percent optimistic about winning election, says Shakib after casting voteIn Chattogram-10 constituency, two people were shot in a clash between supporters of Awami League candidate and independent candidate at Kalshi-Pahartali area.Meanwhile, a clash broke out between police and BNP activists in the Chandgaon area of Chattogram city this morning after leaders and activists of the opposition party tried to bar voters from casting their votes.Four people, including a child, were injured as two crude bombs exploded in front of Battala Jamia Anwarul Uloom Madrasa at Hazaribagh Battala in the capital around 11:30 am.Crude bomb explosion was reported at a polling centre in Jashore an hour before voting began that injured a member of Bangladesh Ansar.Clashes were reported from Barishal-5 constituency as well.Voting at a polling centre in Narsingdi-4 constituency (Monohardi-Belabo) was cancelled amid allegations of irregularities.Returning Officer Dr Badiul Alam said the voting was cancelled due to allegations of ballot-stuffing.Meanwhile, balloting at two polling stations under Narsingdi-3 constituency in Shibpur upazila of Narsingdi district was cancelled over allegations of stuffing ballots and attacking the presiding officer and snatching ballot boxes.The two polling centers are—VT Chinadi Government Primary School and Dulalpur Fazil Madrasha in Shibpur upazila.Allegations of ballot-stuffing was reported from Cumilla-4 (Debidwar) as supporters of Awami League were accused of stamping the boat symbol on ballot papers.Meanwhile, two candidates in Mymensingh’s Gafargaon constituency and one candidate of Jatiya Party in Narsingdi-2 have boycotted the election alleging irregularities.Two independent candidates in Mymensingh’s Gafargaon constituency announced to boycott the election alleging vote rigging and irregularities.Independent candidate Abul Hossain Dipu with ‘Eagle’ symbol and ‘Truck’ symbol candidate Kaiser Ahmed said they boycotted the voting as the polling agents of most of the polling centres in 15 unions and municipal areas of the upazila were driven out of the polling centers.Meanwhile, Rakiqul Alam Selim, the Jatiya Party candidate for the Narsingdi-2 constituency, has withdrawn from the election, citing irregularities.Meanwhile, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Sunday alleged that the ballot boxes were stuffed at night even in the one-sided election.“The lopsided election is being held today. There are no voters at the polling stations,” he said.Speaking at a brief rally near Kurmitola Bus Stand area, he said people have rejected the dummy election.Some 1,970 candidates, including 436 independent contenders, are running in the general election.Out of 44 political parties registered with the Election Commission, 16 are out of the electoral race.There are 11,93,33,157 voters — 6,05,92,169 male, 5,87,40,140 female and 848 transgender — under 42,024 polling stations in the constituencies, according to the EC.Some eight lakh security personnel are on election duty to maintain the electoral atmosphere by checking violation of codes of conduct throughout the country.On November 15, 2023, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal announced the schedule to hold the 12th general election on January 7, 2024.

The votes are in. The polls are closed. But the top contenders may have a long, anxious wait ahead of them for accurate results in New York City’s mayoral primary, the first citywide election to use ranked choice voting. Several candidates in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio have the potential to make history if elected. The city could get its first female mayor, its first Asian American mayor or its second Black mayor, depending on who comes out on top. But with the debut of the ranked voting system and a mountain of absentee ballots still at least a week away from being counted, it could be July before a winner emerges in the Democratic contest. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, led in several recent polls. But he was closely trailed by former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley, with former presidential candidate Andrew Yang also in pursuit. “This has been an amazing journey,” Adams told reporters after voting in Brooklyn, emotionally recounting how his path into both law enforcement and politics began at age 15, when he was beaten by police officers. “A little boy, laying on the floor of the 103rd Precinct, assaulted by cops, now could become the mayor to be in charge of that same police department.” After polls closed at 9 p.m., New York City’s Board of Elections planned to release partial results of votes cast in person, but that initial picture could be misleading because it will only include data on who candidates ranked as their first choice. Also read: Mongolians voting for president amid biggest virus outbreak The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot. Vote tabulation is then done in computerized rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins. It won’t be until June 29 that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any absentee ballots in its analysis until July 6, making any count before then potentially unreliable. Also read: Dems walk, stop Texas GOP s sweeping voting restrictions More than 87,000 absentee ballots had been received by the city as of Monday, with more expected to arrive in the mail over the next few days. Besides Adams, Garcia, Wiley and Yang, other contenders in the Democratic contest include City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales. De Blasio, a Democrat, leaves office at the end of the year due to term limits. In the Republican primary, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa faced off against businessman Fernando Mateo. Because there were only two candidates in that race, ranked choice voting won’t be a factor. The candidates raced around the city Tuesday doing a last round of campaigning. Wiley was losing her voice greeting voters near her polling place in Brooklyn. Garcia campaigned up in the Bronx, while Sliwa and Stringer bumped into each other campaigning in Manhattan. Yang rode the subways to meet voters. Also read: House passes sweeping voting rights bill over GOP opposition “If you want your city to work for us and our families, you have got to get out and vote,” he said after voting in Manhattan. Concern over a rise in shootings during the pandemic has dominated the mayoral campaign in recent months, even as the candidates have wrestled with demands from the left for more police reform. As a former officer, but one who spent his career fighting racism within the department, Adams may have benefited most from the policing debate. He denounced the “defund the police” slogan and proposed reinstating a disbanded plainclothes unit to focus on getting illegal guns off the streets. Wiley and Stringer, battling for progressive votes, both said they would reallocate a portion of the police department’s budget to other city programs. Of the top contenders, either Garcia or Wiley would be city’s first female mayor if elected. Adams or Wiley would be the second Black mayor. Yang would be the city’s first Asian American mayor. Yang and Garcia formed an alliance in the campaign’s last days in an apparent effort to use the ranked voting system to block Adams. The two held several joint campaign events, with Yang asking his supporters to rank Garcia as their No. 2 — though Garcia did not quite return the favor, not telling her voters where to rank Yang. Adams accused his two rivals of purposely trying to block a Black candidate. Neither Sliwa nor Mateo has much of a chance to win the November general election in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 7 to 1. Former allies, the two Republicans traded personal insults and tried to shout over each other during one debate on Zoom. Sliwa, a radio host who still wears his red Guardian Angels beret when he appears in public, got an endorsement from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who called him “my great friend” in a robocall to Republican voters. Mateo, a restaurateur who has led organizations advocating for car service drivers and bodega owners, was endorsed by Michael Flynn, former president Donald Trump’s first national security adviser.