A total of 234,535 voters have voted in Bhutan’s third National Council election yesterday. That’s 54.3 per cent of the 432,030 total registered voters.
This means the voter turnout rose by nine per cent from 2013 elections, which recorded 45 per cent voter turnout.
Declaring the election results officially this morning, the Chief Election Commissioner described the 2018 National Council election as historic not just in terms of voter turnout but also in terms of the number of candidates who came forward to contest.
Of the total 234,535 voters who voted in the third National Council election, 115,809 were female and 118,726 male.
A total of 169,623 voters voted through electronic voting machines, while 64,912 voted through postal ballot. A total of 88,915 voters had registered as postal voters.
275 postal ballots were rejected during the counting.
ECB’s Head of Department of Civic and Electoral Training, Phub Dorji said the increased voter turnout is an indication of the Bhutanese people understanding more about democratic process and importance of National Council.
“Not only voter turnout, the number of candidates has also increased,” he added.
The Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) says it has received a total of eight election disputes and the cases were resolved through Election Dispute System.
One of the cases was received on the eve of the poll day from Samtse but was dismissed due to inconclusive evidence.
Some Nu 250 m was spent on conducting the National Council election this time.
The Election Petition Period starts from today and will end at 5pm on May 8.
