The head of election commission’s postal ballot unit, Namgay Tshering, advises voters who have registered for facilitation booths not to rush together at a time and to vote at convenience.

The ECB will operate postal ballot facilitation and mobile booths on October 10, 11 and 12. During the recently held primaries, some of the facilitation booths saw longer waiting time as compared with others.

One of the reasons for long waiting time, Namgay Tshering said, was the voters rushing to facilitation booths at the same time. He said that the number of postal voters depends on the population size of the dzongkhag and that the election commission has arranged the facilitation booths accordingly.

“People should come again the next day if the line is too long. They can come and vote at anytime during the three days,” he said.

According to Namgay Tshering, there are about 10,000 postal voters registered to vote at Changlimithang in Thimphu. There will be eight voting compartments and more than 30 at Changlimithang.

The election commission on October 4 issued a public advisory calling the people that the facilitation booths will be operating from October 10 for three days. “All registered postal voters are reminded and urged to turn out at the Postal Ballot Facilitation Booth of your choice, between 9am to 7pm on any of the above mentioned dates, with the Voter Photo Identity Card,” it states.

Namgay Tshering said that 65 poling stations would be set up across the 20 dzongkhags. The ECB had facilitated a mobile booth in RTC, but it will set up a facilitation booth at the college for the general election.

The ECB, he said, would ensure that postal ballots for facilitation booths reach the returning officers by October 8. The commission dispatched the ballots for the facilitation booths yesterday.

More than 102,000 registered postal voters, election officials said, are expected to vote at the postal ballot facilitation and mobile booths for the general elections.

Slightly over 81 percent of the total 133,795 registered postal voters cast their votes in the primaries. For the primary round, the returning officers received 110,538 postal ballot packages from the total 133,795 registered postal voters

Registered postal voters consist of about 30 percent of the total registered voters of 438, 663. There are 3,568 registered overseas postal ballot voters according to the primary round figures.

MB Subba