Voting underway in DUCSU polls

The students of Dhaka University are casting their votes in the the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) and Hall Sangsad elections.

The casting of votes began at 8am on Tuesday (September 9) and will continue till 4pm.

For the first time, optical mark recognition (OMR) technology-based six-page ballot forms are being used in the elections.

According to the announced information, each voter received a six-page form, out of which five pages are for the central parliament while one page is allocated for the hall parliament. The ballot has the candidate's name, ballot number, designation and designated space for voting.

A total of 810 booths has been set up in eight centers in this election. After the voting, the counting will be completed in 14 state-of-the-art scanning machines installed in each center. The machines are capable of scanning 5,000 to 8,000 pages per hour, which is equivalent to an average of about 91,000 page scans per hour.

Chief Returning Officer Professor Jasim Uddin said that it will be possible to complete the vote counting within 3-4 hours considering the form loading, verification and technical work at the field level. He also said that every student who stands in line by 4 pm will be able to vote.

After the voting, the results will be displayed on LED screens outside each center and the center-wise results will also be announced immediately. Finally, the results of all the centers will be combined and the final announcement will be made in the Senate Bhaban auditorium. However, anyone can know the overall result by adding the results of the individual centers before that.

Students are participating in the voting process step by step. They will have to go to the designated center between 8am and 4pm and confirm their identity as a voter. First-year students will show their library card or pay-in-slip, while other year students will show their hall ID card, university ID card or library card. After that, the voter's finger will be indelibly inked, they will have to sign the voter list and provide their voter number. Later, the voter will be given separate ballot forms for the Central Parliament and the Hall Parliament.

The voter will go to the secret room and find the name and number of the candidate and put a cross mark in the designated box. Mobile phones or any electronic devices will not be allowed there. After voting, the ballot should be submitted in a separate ballot box without folding it.