Nima Wangdi

Of the 96,217 who registered for  Paper Ballot Facilitation Booth (PBFB) nationwide, 77,626 voted at the PBFB centres that ended yesterday. This means 18,591 did not come to the PBFB centres to vote.

Of the 34,799 who registered for PBFB in Thimphu, only 28,310 voted. A total of 6,489 registered voters did not vote.

As per the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB)’s record, 15,183 registered for Mobile Voting Booth (MVB). This includes senior citizens and differently-abled people, who could not come to the PBFB centres. ECB facilitated MVB to ensure that no one is left behind without voting.

Thimphu had 11 PBFB centres including one for differently-abled people. There were 185 PBFB centres in total in the country. Each centre catered for two dzongkhags and this was to avoid crowding at the centres, ECB officials said earlier.

In an earlier interview, ECB’s media focal, Phub Dorji said ECB will segregate the envelopes containing paper ballots and dispatch them to the respective dzongkhags with security. “The envelopes will be handed over to the dzongkhag election officer, who in turn will distribute it to the respective returning officers. Envelopes should reach the returning officers before December 20.”

Phub Dorji said that the PBFB was initiated to avoid the risk of Covid-19 virus local transmission by preventing people from travelling to their dzongkhags.

According to the ECB’s record, there are 473,978 registered voters of which 96,217 were registered for PBFB and 15,183 for MVB. A total of 39,391 registered for the conventional postal ballot of which 4,774 were overseas.