After voting ended at 4 pm, Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Habibul Awal informed the media at around 5 pm. First, he said, “28 percent of the votes have been cast so far.” Then a man sitting next to him whispered in his ear, “It’s 40 percent.” The CEC then said, “40 percent. Still, 100 percent data has not yet been received from the dashboard. The CEC said that the data they have received so far is reliable, but it is not yet certain and there may be slight differences.
EC sources said the EU technical team, as well as the NDI and IRI delegations, wanted to know about this confusion over mass voter turnout. Election Commission officials had then told that the presiding officers of all the polling stations have been instructed to provide the voting percentage data in the special software of the EC every two hours, but all the presiding officers could not do so properly. The presiding officer could not immediately provide data on voting percentage from constituencies in the three hill districts and several other districts. EC officials also presented relevant data and information to EU, NDI and IRI delegations.
An EC official told Prothom Alo that the EU team has asked for detailed data on the matter and will be provided with detailed information.