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The Election Commission (EC) has announced that voting in the presidential election will be held continuously from 2pm to 5pm on August 20 at the session room of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
Senior EC Secretary Akhtar Ahmed said voting would remain open until 5pm to accommodate any lawmakers who might be delayed for unforeseen reasons. “The arrangements have been made for voting to continue until 5pm on August 20.
This timeframe has been set considering the possibility that a lawmaker may be delayed in reaching the venue for unforeseen reasons,” he said.
Lawmakers will remain seated in their respective seats in the session room, while election officials appointed by the EC will deliver ballot papers to them. Akhtar Ahmed held a preparatory meeting with the acting Speaker of Parliament on Tuesday regarding the presidential election.
Later, at the Election Commission headquarters in Agargaon, he briefed journalists on the voting process. According to Akhtar Ahmed, each ballot paper will have two sections — a counterfoil and the main ballot.
The counterfoil will contain the candidate’s serial number, voter’s name, division number and a space for signature. The main ballot on the right side will contain the names of the contesting candidates.
In the designated space beside the candidates’ names, each voter, who is a lawmaker, will write the full name of their preferred candidate and sign the ballot. For the convenience of voters, three transparent ballot boxes will be placed inside the room, and lawmakers will be able to cast their ballots in any one of them.
Akhtar Ahmed said vote counting would begin immediately after voting ends at 5pm, in front of the ballot boxes inside the session room. A ballot-counting team of four or five members will initially sort and count the ballots.
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), acting as the returning officer, will announce the number of valid and rejected ballots out of the total 349 ballots and the votes secured by each candidate in the session room.
The Election Commission Secretariat will later publish the official final results through a gazette.
The EC senior secretary also said arrangements would be made for live television coverage of the voting process from the session room, with designated seating for journalists. He added that the commission would issue special identification cards to 20 of its officials.
