A total of 1,533,682 voters have registered to vote via postal ballot for the upcoming 13th National Parliament election and referendum through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app. The registration process, which began on 18 November, closed at midnight on Monday, according to the Election Commission (EC) website.

According to the EC, out of the total registered voters, 1,281,434 are men and 252,246 are women.

Among expatriate voters, Saudi Arabia leads, with 239,186 voters registering from the country. Other countries with significant registrations include Malaysia (84,292), Qatar (76,139), and Oman (56,207).

Within the country, 761,140 voters registered under the ‘in-country postal vote’ category.

At the district level, Comilla tops the list with 112,090 registered voters, followed by Dhaka (108,755) and Chattogram (95,297).

By constituency, Feni-3 leads with 16,093 registrations, followed by Chattogram-15 with 14,301 voters.

The Election Commission reported that in the past 16 days, postal ballots have been sent to 635,769 expatriate voters in 81 countries, with the largest number (207,943) going to voters in Saudi Arabia.

Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Out-of-Country Voting System and Implementation (OCV-SDI) project, told BSS on Tuesday that the registration period for the Postal Vote BD app will not be extended, and that voter response has been overwhelming.

He added that postal ballots will be delivered to voters by 10 January, but maintaining the confidentiality of the ballot is the voter’s responsibility. He warned that if secrecy is violated, the voter’s National ID (NID) could be blocked.

Additionally, about 10,000 voters were contacted via message to correct errors in their registered addresses.

Apart from expatriate voters, government officials and employees on election duty, public servants stationed outside their home constituencies, and voters in legal custody also had the opportunity to register through the app.

The app, launched on 18 November, allows voters in 148 countries to register using their mobile numbers from their respective countries.