Noman Mosharef :
The Election Commission (EC) has formed a committee at upazilla level for resolving the dual voter problems.
EC source said, the committee will have five members, including Upazilla Nirbhahi Officer (UNO) as chief of the committee, Upazilla/Thana Nirbhachan Officer will hold Member-Secretary position, and other three members are Thnana Officer-in-Charge (OC), Assistant Commissioner of Land (AC Land) and Upazilla Social Services Officer.
Source said, committee will hear dual voters. If it is proved if anyone is made was a dual voter with ill motives, committee will file case against them. On the other hand, if it mistake they will be relieved. After that EC will take related decision.
EC Commissioner Kabita Khanam said, in the case of dual voters, we will look at the intention first. If someone is found to be a voter more than once for bad motives, legal action will be taken against him. However, many people have given information to become voters earlier but later became voters again for not getting National Identity Card (NID). We will not sue those who have no ill intentions in becoming such unintentional or dual voters.
EC source said, if any citizen wants to become a voter, his/her all information uploaded in EC server will be examined for matching. This process will help the EC to be sure as to whether the applicant is a dual voter or not.
EC’s system Manager Md Ashraf Hossain said, there is no minimum possibility to become a dual voter nowaday.
He said, the Automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS) technology is not being used at the field level now. It will be used at every level to find out the dual voter.
Voter list and election management system said, according to voter database server information there are about 5,29,806 dual voters in the country, while match found 6,38,139 voters.
Experts said, due to weakness of AFIS system more match finding voters have been detected.
EC’s additional Secretary Ashoak Kumar Debnath said, a decision had been taken that the field level official could arrange hearing programme on dual voter issue.
He said, a significant number of people became dual voters for lack of their knowledge while others with ill motives. Those who have no bad intention, they will get pardon, but who had deceptive wills they will be under punishment by filing cases. According to EC’s information, the number of the total voters is 111,720,669, of which 56,598,005 (50.66%) are men, 55,122,223 females (49.33%) and 441 transgender ones – in the country.
Initially NID cards related services such as loss of NID cards and correction were free. From 1st September 2015, EC started to charge for NID cards related services.
