Election Commission (EC) is closely monitoring voting across the country through live feeds from police body-worn cameras, CCTV, drones, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The monitoring was visible at the EC’s law enforcement coordination cell at the Election Commission building around 9:30am on Thursday, where officials were tracking the voting process in real time.
EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed, speaking to reporters, urged them to report any irregularities. “You can also observe the voting situation and inform us,” he said.
The coordination cell includes officials from the air force, police, army and other government departments and agencies. The eight administrative divisions of the country are being monitored through four sub-cells.
EC officials said that by 9am, around 11 lakh votes had been cast.
For the first time, the air force is providing live feeds from unmanned aerial vehicles, while the police are sharing footage from body-worn cameras. Drones operated by various security forces are also transmitting real-time images.
In addition, the EC is receiving instant updates through its election security app.
Voting began at 7:30am and will continue until 4:30 am without interruption.
Polling is taking place in 42,651 centres across 299 parliamentary constituencies out of 300. Voting in Sherpur-3 was cancelled after the death of a candidate.
The country has a total of 12,77,11,793 registered voters, including 6,28,85,200 women, 6,48,25,361 men and 1,232 third-gender voters.
Due to the cancellation in Sherpur-3, 4,13,337 voters in the constituency will not be able to vote, bringing the total eligible voters to 12,72,98,456.
