The Election Commission (EC) is grappling with an unusually heavy administrative load as it prepares to hold a national referendum and the 13th parliamentary election on the same day — a combination the country has not seen in 34 years.
The decision, taken by the government, requires the commission to manage two nationally significant votes simultaneously for the first time in the country’s history, forcing a full recalibration of its polling plans and exposing the scale of the challenge ahead.
The commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, has no prior experience of organising any election, let alone a referendum, and officials admit that the pressure is intensifying.
They say that even conducting a parliamentary election alone is a major undertaking in the present climate. Managing a referendum alongside it will be considerably more difficult, testing the capacity of an institution that has yet to prove itself under real electoral pressure.
With the clock ticking toward December — when Election Commissioner Abul Fazl Md Sanuallah says the schedule for the national election will be announced — the commission is scrambling to identify risks and refine its preparations.
To understand how a dual vote might unfold in practice, the EC plans to conduct a mock poll this week. Officials say the design of the final operational plan will be based on the results of this test.
The simulation will examine how voters interact with two separate ballots, how long it takes to complete voting, how crowding can be managed, and what kind of adjustments may be required for elderly voters, pregnant women and persons with disabilities.
The mock poll, to be organised by the Electoral Training Institute (ETI), is scheduled for 29 November at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Girls’ High School in Agargaon, Dhaka, or another nearby institution that meets the logistical requirements.
Election officials fear that voters will need almost twice the usual time to cast their ballots, as each will now fill out two sets of papers — one for the parliamentary election and one for the referendum. A slower voting process could lead to long queues, congestion and difficulty in maintaining order at polling centres. To address this, the commission is weighing two options: increasing the number of polling booths or extending polling hours.
Extending the timetable, however, carries complications of its own. With winter approaching, officials worry that a longer voting period could push ballot counting deep into the night, raising security concerns and complicating the transportation of results.
Booth planning has also become more complex. In local government elections, where each voter casts three ballots for three posts, one booth is typically allocated for every 300 to 400 voters. For the upcoming parliamentary election, the EC had initially planned for 500 to 600 voters per booth. But the addition of a referendum on the same day has forced a rethink. The commission is now considering reducing the number to 400–500 per booth and increasing the total number of booths by as many as 42,000 to prevent bottlenecks.
At the same time, the commission is preparing to introduce two different coloured ballot papers — possibly green or pink for the referendum — to help reduce confusion during both voting and counting. But training requirements will increase sharply. Because the country has not organised a referendum in more than three decades, a large cohort of field officials will need additional instruction to handle the dual-ballot process with confidence.
The logistical strain does not end there. On the question of ballot boxes, EC officials say the commission currently has around 340,000 boxes — far more than the roughly 288,000 usually needed for a parliamentary election. Even if tens of thousands of additional booths are added, they insist there will be no shortage of boxes or ballot paper.
“We have more work because two votes are being held at the same time. The biggest challenge is completing voting within the allotted time while maintaining order,” EC Additional Secretary KM Ali Newaz told TIMES of Bangladesh. “That is why we are conducting the mock poll. The final decision will be taken on the basis of its results. If voting takes too long, we may need to increase the number of booths.”
Responding to questions about why the mock poll is being held in Dhaka — rather than in rural areas where illiteracy rates are higher and polling behaviour may differ — he said the capital is home to a wide cross-section of the population, including slum-dwellers, migrant workers, service-sector employees, students and elderly residents, allowing the test to capture the needs of diverse groups.
The chief election commissioner has publicly acknowledged that holding two votes on the same day will be demanding. He noted that no previous commission has faced anything comparable and emphasised that the logistical and administrative pressure on the current commission is significantly greater than that experienced by its predecessors.
Election experts also warn that the challenges are formidable. Md Abdul Alim, a member of the Election System Reform Commission, said the dual vote would be “highly challenging” from the outset. The first difficulty, he said, lies in logistics: printing two sets of ballot papers, supplying two ballot boxes to each polling station, and revising the lists of polling centres and booths. Ensuring that voting finishes within the scheduled time will be another major hurdle.
He pointed out that political parties typically campaign aggressively during a referendum, meaning they will now need to decide where to devote their energy — to the parliamentary race or the referendum. That, he said, could reshape political strategy in unexpected ways. He also expressed concern about plans to take expatriate votes without piloting the process, calling it a significant risk.
As the EC rushes to prepare, the scale of the task underscores how unusual and demanding this election cycle will be. With a dual ballot, an inexperienced commission and tight timelines, the electoral authorities face an unprecedented test of their capacity, organisation and resilience. How they manage it — and how well voters adapt to the changes — could define public confidence in the election long before the first vote is cast.
