Neten Dorji

Trashiyangtse — As of yesterday, the dzongkhag election office in Trashiyangtse received more than 90 percent of the 6,174 postal ballots issued for the two constituencies.

The Office of the Returning Officer at Khamdang-Ramjar constituency received 2,857 ballots out of the 3,074 issued including seven from abroad, and 23 from people with disabilities.  

Similarly, the Returning Officer of Boomdeling-Jamkhar constituency received around 3,000 out of the 3,100 ballots issued by the RO Office. Among these, 28 ballots were from people with disabilities, and the remaining were from overseas and within the country.

Since the commencement of the postal ballot’s Envelope A opening on January 7, some ballots were rejected in Trashiyangtse. However, the Returning Officer declined to disclose specific reasons why the postal ballots were rejected, saying that it was instructions from the ECB head office not to share such details with the media.

An election official mentioned that compared to the primary elections, the rejection rate for postal ballots is minimal. The common reasons for rejection include individuals making simple mistakes while filling out the identity declaration certificate (IDC), same signatures, and forgetting to obtain the signatures of the voter and witness.

Other reasons for rejection of Envelope A are non-declaration of the citizen identity number, missing IDC, and inaccuracies in demkhong names on the IDC, among other issues.

Envelope B, containing the ballots, will be opened this morning.