Photo: Collected
The Election Commission (EC) will commence the door-to-door data collection campaign tomorrow (January 20) throughout the country to update the electoral rolls. Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin will open the voter list updating programme-2025 at Savar Upazila Parishad auditorium in Dhaka on Monday morning.
The door-to-door data collection campaign will continue till February 3 and the collection of biometric data of the eligible voters will be taken from February 5 to April 11. During the field-level data collection campaign, enumerators will collect the data of the eligible voters who were born on and before January 1, 2008.
Besides, the enumerators will also collect applications from the existing voters who intended to change voting addresses and the data of deceased voters for dropping their names from the voter lists.
On the eve of the countrywide voter list updating programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Stefan Liller handed over 175 laptops, 200 scanners and 4300 bags to the CEC in Dhaka's Nirbachan Bhaban.
At the event, the CEC said the EC plans to complete the voter list updating programme within six months and some 65,000 people will work towards this goal.
"We are hopeful that all uncertainties will be cleared, Inshallah," he said, replying to a question from reporters.
According to the Electoral Training Institute, more than 66,000 people have already received training over the voter listing updating programme. The trained people include 55,016 enumerators and 11,801 supervisors.
The EC will publish the draft updated electoral rolls incorporating the names of new voters on January 2, 2026. Following the resettlement of claims and objections, the commission will make the final electoral rolls on March 2, 2026.
The Election Commission has recently issued a notification with 16 instructions for the officials and enumerators who will be engaged in the data collection camapaign.
The instructions include collection of data of those persons who had been born on and before January 1, 2008 but have remained out of the voter lists, ascertaining if such persons became voters in the past, writing proper spelling of names of possible voters in both Bengali and English and being careful so that the data of Rohingyas and foreign nationals could no way be collected.
According to the existing voter lists (published on March 2, 2024), there are 121.85 million (121,850,160) voters in the country.
Four election commissioners - Abdur Rahmanel Masud, Tahmida Ahmad, Anwarul Islam Sarker and Brig Gen (Retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah - will also speak at the inaugural ceremony tomorrow.
EC senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed will deliver the welcome speech in the function to be presided over by EC additional secretary KM Ali Newaz.
Messenger/JRTarek
