The Election Commission (EC) plans to reopen Out-of-Country voter registration on Friday for Bangladeshi expatriates in seven countries, following a temporary suspension caused by incorrect or incomplete mailing addresses submitted by many applicants.
The seven countries affected are Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“We are working to reopen it by tomorrow (Friday) morning so that expatriate voters can take advantage of Friday, which is a holiday, In sha Allah. We are trying to re-launch the app for these seven countries as soon as possible,” said Brig Gen (retd) Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of EC’s Out-of-Country Voting (OCV) development and implementation (SDI) project, at a press briefing at Nirbachan Bhaban on Thursday.
The EC initially launched its mobile app, Postal Vote Bd, for expatriates in all countries, including the seven, at midnight on Wednesday, enabling them to register for the upcoming national election. However, due to widespread incorrect mailing addresses—which are crucial for delivering postal ballots—the commission temporarily halted registration for these countries.
“If there are incorrect addresses, the ballots can’t be sent to the proper destinations. So, when we noticed the issue, we decided to suspend the process temporarily for the seven countries,” Salim Ahmad said.
The EC has coordinated with Bangladeshi missions in these countries to ensure correct addresses are collected through awareness campaigns. Once confirmed, postal ballot packages will be sent via the Bangladesh Post Office starting at the end of next week.
Speaking at the same briefing, EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed expressed optimism about expatriate voter participation in the upcoming 13th parliamentary election and the referendum on the July National Charter, expected to be held simultaneously in early February 2026.
“The expectations for expatriate inclusion in OCV remain high. While minor issues are inevitable when rolling out a new system, awareness campaigns are ongoing,” he said.
As of 8:00 pm on Thursday, a total of 58,563 expatriates—49,777 men and 8,786 women—had registered through the app. The highest numbers of registrants came from the USA (10,956), followed by South Korea (9,028), Japan (6,335), Canada (6,187), Australia (5,570), South Africa (4,330), Singapore (2,404), China (1,731), the UK (1,387), and Saudi Arabia (1,058).
Dhaka district leads in the number of expatriates voting from abroad, with 12,411 registrants, followed by Comilla (4,340), Noakhali (3,751), Chittagong (3,645), and Sylhet (3,219). By constituency, Noakhali-1 has the highest number of registered expats at 1,279, followed by Dhaka-18 (1,256), Sylhet-1 (1,250), Dhaka-10 (1,068), and Dhaka-8 (1,054).
The EC first launched the Postal Vote Bd app on November 18 to enable expatriates to vote in the next general election. Although postal balloting has long been legal, it was never implemented in previous elections. This marks the first time the commission is introducing a hybrid postal voting system, allowing expatriates, government staff, polling personnel, and inmates to vote through a combination of digital registration and manual balloting.
Through this IT-supported postal voting mechanism, the EC aims to facilitate participation for approximately five million Bangladeshi expatriates living in 143 countries.
