The General Election of the Third Parliamentary National Assembly Election held yesterday saw a record total voter turnout of 71.46 per cent. This is an increase of over five per cent from 66 per cent voter turnout in the 2013 General Election.
Yesterday’s turnout is also an increase from 66.36 per cent voter turnout recorded in the Primary Round held last month.
The Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) declared the results officially earlier today at the Democracy House in Thimphu.
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Chogyal Dago Rigdzin, said of the total 438,663 eligible registered voters, 313,473 voters have cast their votes in the General Election.
A total of 199,553 voters voted through EVMs, while 113,920 were postal voters.
Female voters outnumbered male voters but just marginally. Of the 313,473 voters, 50.8 per cent were women.
The postal ballot voter turnout was 113,920 of which 54,449 were female and 59,479 male.
Of the total EVM voter turnout of 199,553, 104,870 were female and 94,689 male.
At the official declaration of the general election results, CEC Chogyal Dago Rigdzin also reported that all 865 electronic voting machines used encountered no problems.
However, despite the ECB putting in new standard operating procedures to make every vote count, 797 postal ballots were rejected in the general elections yesterday.
The dust on the 2018 National Assembly election is now settled with Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa having received the mandate to form Bhutan’s next government, all that remains is the petition period.
The election petition period starts Monday and it will go on till November 6.
