A total of 17,367 Bangladeshi expatriates have been registered as voters so far after they applied from nine foreign countries through Bangladeshi missions.
“Till now, 48,080 expatriate Bangladeshis have applied to become voters through missions in nine countries…. of them, 17,367 expatriates have already become voters,” Election Commission’s NID Registration Wing Director General ASM Humayun Kabir told reporters on Tuesday.
He said some 11,287 smart cards against the new voters have already been distributed as well.
Now the NID registration services are provided at 16 Bangladesh mission offices stationed in nine countries –the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, Australia and Canada.
But the Election Commission (EC) has a plan to gradually expand the services to 40 countries.
The NID services will soon be launched in five more countries – the US, Oman, South Africa, Jordan and the Maldives.
In November 2019, the then EC initiated online registration in Malaysia as a pilot, but the initiative faced setback due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The process resumed in July 2023 but faced a fresh deadlock following the political change on 05 August 2024.