Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) A M M Nasir Uddin will travel to Canada on August 26 to oversee the launch of voter registration and National Identity Card (NID) services for the Bangladeshi diaspora, the Election Commission (EC) announced.
The services in Canada will be officially inaugurated in the first week of September during CEC’s visit. This follows the launch of identical services in Japan, which are set to begin in the final week of August.
The EC’s NID Wing reported that all technical preparations, including the installation of necessary equipment and the training of embassy staff, have been completed in Tokyo, as well as in Toronto and Ottawa. The operations are now awaiting formal inauguration.
Currently, voter registration services are operational through embassy stations in 15 locations across eight countries: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, and Australia. The addition of Canada and Japan will extend these services to expatriates in ten countries.
In preparation for the Japan launch, EC Secretary Md. Akhtar Ahmed has already traveled to Tokyo. His itinerary, from August 19 to 21, included inspecting the technical setup and supervising the training of relevant embassy personnel.
CEC A M M Nasir Uddin will depart for Canada on August 26 and is scheduled to stay until September 3. He will be accompanied by Mohammad Lutful Kabir, the District Election Officer of Lalmonirhat. During his visit, the CEC will hold meetings with the expatriate community on voter registration before formally inaugurating the NID and registration services. A technical team has been on the ground in Canada since August 10 to prepare for the launch.
Sources from the National Identity Registration Wing revealed that as of mid-May, a total of 45,184 applications for NIDs had been received from the initial seven countries. Of these, 28,926 individuals have completed their registration with fingerprint biometrics. Meanwhile, 3,563 applications were rejected during scrutiny, and investigations are ongoing for 21,889 applications sent to various upazilas in Bangladesh.
To date, over 11,000 expatriates have received their National Identity Cards. The EC has a phased plan to eventually extend NID services to Bangladeshis in 40 countries.
The demand for providing NIDs and voter registration to non-resident Bangladeshis through embassies first emerged during the preparation of the photo voter list in 2007-08. The EC initially launched an online registration pilot in Malaysia in November 2019, but the initiative was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The process has been prioritized and resumed under the current commission led by CEC A M M Nasir Uddin.