The Election Commission (EC) will start collecting information door to door from Tuesday (Apr 23) to update its electoral roll.
Splitting into several phases, the EC will gather data until May 13, said EC officials.
Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda will inaugurate the first phase of voter list update programme at Rajbari with other commissioners and EC officials will do the same at different places of the country.
In the first phase, the EC will update the voter list of as many as 135 Upazila in 64 districts.
According to officials, apart from signing up new voters, information of citizens born between Jan 1, 2001 and Jan 1, 2004 .will be also collected, who will automatically be included in the list once they are eligible to exercise their franchises,
This time, the EC will also collect information on transgender people under ‘hijra’ gender identity in the voter list.
It will collect information on deceased voters to omit their name from the list and accept the application on shifting the voting area.
As part of its programme, the EC has instructed the ministries concerned and the local authorities to run widespread campaign to raise awareness among the prospective voters.
It also issued a set of 16 instructions for the officials who are involved with the voter list updating programme with the strict order to go door to door to gather information.
Besides, special measures have been taken in 32 upazillas to ensure that Rohingya refugees living there can’t be enlisted as the voter.
No one from these upazilas will be included in the voter list unless they are recommended by special committees formed by EC, said the sources.
According to EC, as many as 52,500 field surveyors, 10,500 supervisors and 750 assistant registration officers will collect information on an estimated 8 million new voters across the country.
The electoral roll was last updated in 2017 when the number of voters increased to as many as 104,142,381 with 52,525,125 male and 51,630,276 female voters.