Unlike previous polls, voter turnout still not announced hours after polls close
The voting started at 7:30am and continued peacefully until 4:30pm, with no major complaints or disruptions reported
Although the voting in the 13th national election and referendum ended at 4:30pm today (12 February), the Election Commission (EC) has not announced the overall voter turnout even into the late hours of the night.
The voting started at 7:30am and continued peacefully until 4:30pm, with no major complaints or disruptions reported.
After vote counting started, results from the polling centres under 299 constituencies have been coming in from across the country.
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However, the EC has failed to provide the crucial overall turnout data.
Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed, and other officials started announcing the results at the commission premises around 9:30pm today.
But they did not announce the turnout there either. Akhtar, instead, facing questions from reporters, said, "We will unveil the turnout after we get the vote counts from 297 or 299 polling centres. So you will have to patiently wait until then, please."
Regarding the matter, Jasmine Tuli, Electoral Reform Commission member and former additional secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat, told The Business Standard that in previous elections, the voter turnout was announced within two hours.
She wondered why the EC was delaying in announcing the turnout this time around.
