As the voting hour drew to a close for the postal ballot facilitation booth voters, Sangay Pelden, 35, rushed to Bajo Higher Secondary School, one of the facilitation booths in Wangdue.

She walked out the exit door with a satisfied smile.

Sangay Pelden said that she had to wait for her voter identity card, which was with one of her relatives.

About 5,420 people, 84 percent of 6,421 registered voters, cast their vote at the three facilitation booths in Wangdue – Gangtey, Bjimthangkha, and Bajo.

Bajo had the maximum voter turnout of 3,377 people. Although Bjimthangka had 1,970 registered voters, 1, 708 turned to cast their vote.

At Bajo, close to 60 individuals could not cast their vote because they were not registered at the station. 

Presiding officer at Bajo said that most of the voters were family members of RBA soldiers at Tencholing, Wangdue. “We also had people who were registered at the National Council (NC) elections but were not for the National Assembly (NA) elections. It was because they had received a new citizenship identity card.”

Punakha

About 73 percent of the registered postal voters at the two facilitation booths in Punakha turned to cast their vote in the three days.

The two facilitation booths were located at Barp gewog centre and Khuruthang Technical Training Institute (TTI).

Punakha had 2,529 registered postal ballot facilitation booth voters. Of the total, 1,846 turned to cast their votes.

Khuruthang TTI saw 1,421 of the 1,851 registered voters cast their votes. 

Khuruthang’s presiding officer said that the facilitation booth received at least 25 cases of non-registered voters for the NA elections.

He added that those were voters who received new identity card after the NC elections.

For those who did not bring the voter identity card at the booths, if registered at the booths, the election officials issued new cards from the election office.

“We provided the service from 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening. On the second day we received a huge number of College of Natural Resources students printing their voter cards,” said another election official.

At the Barp gewog centre, 425 of 678 registered voters cast their vote.

About 1,695 voters from Punakha and Wangdue combined did not cast their vote at the postal ballot facilitation booths that closed yesterday.

Phurpa Lhamo | Punakha

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