Overseas Bangladeshi s who registered through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app have begun sending their ballots back home to cast votes in the 13th National Parliamentary Election and the referendum, with nearly 140,000 ballots already reaching Bangladesh.

As of now, ballots from 139,763 expatriate voters have arrived in the country, said Salim Ahmad Khan, Team Leader of the OCV-SDI Project on overseas voter registration, on Friday night.

He said that until 3:30 pm on Friday, a total of 766,862 ballot papers had been dispatched to the addresses of registered expatriate voters abroad.

Of them, 516,007 expatriates have received their ballots, while 454,587 voters have already exercised their voting rights.

Following voting, 406,564 expatriate voters deposited their completed ballots at designated post offices or postal drop boxes in their respective countries, he added.

Meanwhile, postal ballots have also been distributed among eligible voters residing within Bangladesh.

According to the Election Commission (EC), postal ballots have been sent to 269,000 domestically registered voters under the In-Country Postal Voting (ICPV) system through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app.

Besides expatriate Bangladeshis, three categories of voters inside the country have registered for postal voting via the app. They include election duty officials, government employees working outside their constituencies, and voters currently in legal custody (prisons), all of whom are allowed to cast their votes through the postal ballot system.