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Voter listing 3 weeks ahead of schedule

50pc registration already done

Staff Correspondent
The Election Commission (EC) yesterday reached the halfway mark to finishing the mammoth job of voter listing by already registering four crore electors, three weeks ahead of schedule.
According to the EC's plan, another four crore voters will be registered in the next four months, estimating that the number of voters is likely not to exceed eight crore. The number was 9.30 crore on the previous list prepared in 2006, which was scrapped due to a large number of duplications and other errors on it.
If everything goes according to the electoral roadmap announced by the EC on July 15 of last year, then the voter list with photographs is likely to be ready by the end of October this year with a view to holding the stalled ninth parliamentary election before the year end.
Satisfied by the progress in the work of preparing the voter list, the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has been assisting the EC in die job, is preparing to celebrate die achievement on Sunday, sources said.
Civil and military bureaucrats involved in die job, and officials of different foreign missions in Dhaka are being invited to the celebrafion, from where the EC is expected to announce the progress in its prepa-radons for holding die parliamentary elecdon by the year end, the sources added.
The national voter list with photographs has been being prepared by the EC under the auspices of a UNDP project titled 'Preparation of Electoral Roll with Photographs' (PERP) since last year, at an estimated cost of TK 424 crore withTK 274 crore of it coming from contributions made by different foreign donor agencies and countries.
According to the electoral roadmap, the field level work of voter registration is supposed to be completed by the end of coming
June.
On area wise compledon of field level voter registradon work, the EC has already started publishing draft voter lists for the respective areas, seeking complaints and claims from already registered and overlooked prospective voters to finalise the lists.
The EC has a plan to begin next month the final round of field level work of voter lisdng, with a confident hope of completing the job in June, since it already succeeded in registering four crore voters three weeks ahead of schedule, the sources said.
Chief Elecdon Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda over the last few days has been assuring the political pardes participating in the electoral reform talks with the EC, that the field level work of voter listing will be completed on schedule.
The EC kicked off the field level voter listing job in August of last year on a limited scale and at full
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throttle from November. Over the last few months, the EC has completed the voter listing job on offshore islands and in remote areas.
"We will begin the final round of work in areas more or less adjacent to tilecities, and we believe, that work will proceed much faster than the pace of tiie previous rounds of the job," the CEC said onThesdayduringaday-long electoral reform talks with political parties.
Simultaneously another crucial work of selecting spots for polling stations also readied almost the halfway mark to completion, the sources
"So, once the field level work of voter listing js completed, selection of ■ stJotsTbr^in^ A&ti'oW will also be completed soon after it," said a senior official ofthe EC Secretariat
In November last year, the EC started the work of selecting spots for polling stations for the upcoming national and local government elections with help from the army, although the existing system empowers retumingofficers for doingthejob.
According to the EC's decision, field level election officials have already begun selecting prospective spots for polling stations in their areas on completion ofvoter listings there.
The field level election officials have also been sending to the EC, lists of prospective spots for polling stations since January of this year, with approvals from the army representatives involved in the job in respective areas.
According to existing electoral laws, however, the list of polling stations is supposed to be finalised after the announcement of election schedules.
But for this year's elections, the EC will finalise the list of polling stations long before the announcement of poll schedules to avoid the usual controversies that surround the process of preparing the list, since it is usually made public through an official gazette notification only a couple of weeks ahead of the polling day, leaving the candidates with no chance to dispute thorhnire^