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EC goes for preparing voter list next month

Decision in couple of days if it is to be fresh or revised

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The Election Commission (EC) will start from the next month preparing a voter list, likely to be a fresh one, for the next parliamentary election with about one crore prospective voters waiting to be enfranchised.
A total of 7.48 crore people are on the current voter list prepared in 2000. The EC officials expect the number would rise by about one crore after listing the youth who have become eligible to vote in the last five years.
The EC has yet to decide whether the voter list will be prepared afresh or be revised. The decision in this regard will be taken in a couple of days, said sources.
Sources close to the EC, referring to previous records, hinted that the
commission would go for a fresh electoral register.
They said fresh voter lists were adopted in all three general elections [excepting the controversial election of 15th February 1996] since 1991 and it would not be any different this time as well.
Besides, of the 53 political parties that participated in the recent dialogue with the EC, 35 including the ruling parties have expressed opinions in favour of a fresh voter list.
"We will take the decision by this week," Election Commissioner AK Mohammad Ali told The Daily Star yesterday.
The EC secretariat will start preparing the roll once the commission decides on the issue. The secretariat will engage about five lakh officials to do the job, which will
take as many as eight months to be over and done with.
The EC secretariat has already budgeted over Tk 200 crore for preparing the roll. It will soon request the finance ministry to allocate the funds required for the task.
The EC itself seems to be in favour of a fresh voter list as preparing a new roll will be much easier than updating the existing one.
The chief election commissioner (CEC) and two other election commissioners in the run-up to the much-talked about recent dialogue had repeatedly said that a fresh list could not be prepared without amending the electoral laws. But they appeared to have backtracked on the stance during the dialogue last week.
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The commission this week will formally clarify whether the electoral laws will have to be amended to have a fresh voter list. "An Election Commission meeting will resolve the issue," MohammadAli said.
The voter lists of 1983, 1990,
1995, and 2000 were prepared without amending the laws.
About preparing voter list incorporating the voters' photographs, the officials said that it might not be possible due to time constraint.
With an increase in youth population, the number of enumerators this time will be one lakh more than that of the previous occasion, EC secretariat officials said.
Besides, the number of supervisors will also increase.
To prepare the voter list in 2000, a total of 2,67,374 enumerators, 67,898 supervisors, 490 revising authorities, 6107 assistant registration officers, and 83 registration officers were engaged.
It took over five months to have the roll ready.
The EC documents show that the first voter list was prepared in 1973 in four months with registered voters totalling 3.52 crore. The second one prepared in 1976 in four months listed over 3.83 crore voters, the third in 1983 in six months listed over 4.73 crore, the fourth in 1990 in five months listed over 6.19 crore. Over 5.59 crore people registered with the sixth electoral roll in 1995 over four months.