Noman Mosharef :
Election Commission (EC) has enlisted about 6, 000 men and women as voters who were once shown dead in EC’s database. They are now alive because they did not die. They have been shown as voters in the EC’s revised database.
From April to till now they (voters) had been ‘Rollback’ in the EC’s database. A total of 10, 000 dead voters had been included in EC’s server.
Monwar Hossain Monu, a resident from the Nagarkumari area under Ward No. 3 of Boda Municipality, was registered as a voter in 2008. But he was classified as deceased in the revised and updated voter list in 2014 and since then he has not been able to exercise his franchise in any of the local or national polls.
“I failed to get a loan from the bank as my name was not on the Election Commission’s server. I also couldn’t register myself for the Covid-19 vaccine,” Monu lamented.
Monu is not alone. He is one of the many disenfranchised living across the country. He has been shown dead on the government papers, although he is alive
EC source said, there are few reasons that an alive voter’s name was marked dead. As a result he/she could not do anything by using his/her NID card. After that they came to EC office for correction.
When asked how and why it happend and what measures have been taken to amend, EC Deputy Secretary Md Abdul Halim said, those who are responsible for such type of mistakes or anyone who did it willingly, EC will take strain action against them.
EC source said, those who were in charge to make the dead voter list, they explained that it could be for the operator’s error who were on duty to make dead voter list. Sometime it occured when NID number was pressed wrongly or when one voter was shown dead and another of same name alive.
Source further said, if any voter had died and then his relatives (especially boys, girls) wanted to cut his/her name from voter list, then they have to apply in a relative form by submitting death certificate and supporting documents signed by relative area’s people representatives.
According to EC, before 11th Parliamentary election, a letter was issued from NID wing to all regional, district, upzilla, thana level election officials saying that voters from few upazillas/thanas are claiming that EC server is showing that they are dead. As a result the NID which is with them is useless.
The letter also gave directive to solve the problem. It said that those who are dead in EC database, the related EC office will inform the district office by a letter, then district Nirbachan Office will inform regional office. And then regional office will examine the information and finally will send to the NID wing. After getting such type of application, the ICT department will take instant action.
According to the Election Commission’s final updated electoral roll, the number of voters in the country stands 11,17,20,669 — 5,65,98,005 males (50.66%), 5,51,22,223 females (49.33%) and 441 transgender.
The voter growth was 1.75 percent last year.
Among the total voters, the share of women has slightly declined to 49.33 percent now from 49.48 percent.
