Bangladesh News

In the wake of a proposal by the council of advisers to the caretaker government (CG), the Election Commission (EC) at an emergency meeting last night started searching for ways to correct mistakes in the updated voter list, and it will inform the CG today about possible steps to further update the electoral roll.
“We discussed updating the voter list,” acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Mahfuzur Rahman told reporters while leaving office at 8.45 last night.

He declined to reply when asked if the EC discussed changing the election schedule announced on November 27.

Sources however pointed out that by announcing the election schedule, the EC has already limited the scope for further updating the voter list by deleting the names of fake voters and registering that of eligible ones not included in the present list.

Apart from the controversy over correctness of the updated list that contains a staggering 9.30 crore voters, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs revealed on Saturday that 1.22 crore names on the updated voter list are either excess or duplicates.

The council of advisers at a meeting yesterday discussed the issue and proposed to the EC to make voter list credible to all. The EC secretary informed the council that they tried their best to make the voter list credible, sources said.

Sources in the EC Secretariat said it will be difficult to initiate extensive measures to update the voter list as the election schedule was already announced. The announcement of the schedule limited the jurisdiction of field level election officials to include or delete any names from the list.

As per electoral laws and rules, field level election officials are empowered to include or delete any names from the voter list on their own till the election schedule is announced. After this, only the EC holds such power.

Once the polls schedule is announced, field level election officials are not empowered even to send their recommendations to the EC in this regard for its considerations.

People applying for registering names on the voter list will now have to submit receipts of municipal tax or house rent payment or payment to local security guards, and affidavits of age or attested copies of SSC certificates with their applications in prescribed forms.

Also for deletion of names from the voter list, people will have to apply in prescribed forms to district or upazila election officers.

In both the cases, they will have to visit election offices at upazila and district headquarters.

The EC on November 26 urged the people to enlist or delete names from the voter list, and directed its field level officials to cooperate with them. But till yesterday, the EC did not get any application either for deletion or inclusion of names in the voter list.

The acting CEC on Sunday said none came to correct mistakes in the voter list.