Voters wishing to change their voter area can apply through Sept. 7, the Election Commission (EC) has said, instructing field-level officials to resolve those applications by Sept. 10.
The information comes from a letter signed Wednesday by EC senior assistant secretary Nasir Uddin Chowdhury and sent to upazila/thana and registration officers across the country.
The letter said the Election Commission has set a detailed timetable for filing, issuing and resolving voter-transfer applications tied to changes of residence, ahead of local government elections.
Under that timetable, the deadline for filing voter-transfer applications due to a change of residence is Sept. 7. The deadline for issuing filed applications is Sept. 9, and the deadline for resolving applications is Sept. 10.
The letter also instructed officials to take the necessary steps to resolve transfer applications according to the schedule.
EC official Nasir Uddin Chowdhury said a number of applications for voter-area transfers have already been submitted to respective election offices. With local elections approaching, he said, the EC has now set a deadline for filing and resolving new voter-area change applications, describing it as an ongoing process.
Ahead of the local government elections, the EC has already finalized its voter list. The country has a total of 128,777,643 voters. To run as a candidate in a local election, a person must be a registered voter in the relevant area — city, upazila, district, union or municipality. The process of transferring voters is ongoing ahead of the printing of the final voter list.
Preparations are underway to announce the schedule for local government elections this month. Voting through union parishads could begin by the end of the year.