Voter info: EC to launch door-to-door campaign in March

The newly constituted Election Commission, which held its first meeting yesterday, decided to send its representatives door to door to update the voter list in March next year.

The representatives will collect information to develop a voter list as mandated. However, this voter list will be finalised in March 2026.

In line with the existing law, a draft voter list will be published in January 2025 based on existing information, followed by the year’s final updated list in March.

The chief election commissioner and four other commissioners attended the meeting.

Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah, after the meeting at the EC office in the capital’s Agargaon, said the EC has information of 17 lakh people eligible for the new voters. They will be included in the voter list on January 1, 2025. Out of 17 lakh people, the information of 13 lakh were collected by the Election Commission in 2022. The rest registered at the EC office themselves, he said.

“However, according to statistics, about 45 lakh people are expected to be added as the new voters. So, 27-28 lakh people are yet to be registered.”

The information collected from the door-to-door campaign will be included in the list of eligible voters for 2026, the election commissioner added.

At the same time, information will be gathered to drop the names of the deceased from the voter list.

Responding to a question, Abul Fazal said it may take up to six months to complete all the activities, including collecting information from door to door. It is not yet decided when the house-to-house data collection will start. An action plan will be prepared at the EC Secretariat in this regard.

However, the EC thinks that it will be able to begin this work after March 2, he added.

The new EC, led by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, took office on November 24. Apart from Fazal, three other election commissioners are Anwarul Islam Sarker, a retired additional secretary, Abdur Rahmanel Masud, a retired district and sessions judge, and Tahmida Ahmad, a retired joint secretary.