Except for a few glitches, the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) says, the poll day of the National Assembly (NA) Primary Round election was a success.
ECB received some complaints on the poll day.
A few cases were reported from polling stations in Thimphu where voters could not cast their votes, as their names were registered as postal voters.
Many of them were university graduates. They said they were registered as postal voters without their knowledge.
However, the ECB says the list was provided by the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) and Labour Ministry.
“The RCSC requested ECB to include the graduates attending the National Graduate Orientation Programme in our postal voters’ list,” Sonam Tobgay, the Head of the Department of Elections, said.
Though there is no record of how many graduates could not cast their votes on the poll day, almost 3000 graduates were registered as postal voters with the ECB.
A news release from the ECB states that there was also a case of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) error at Thangza polling station in Lunana Gewog of Gasa around 3 pm on the poll day.
While checking the voter turnout, the EVM could not display any records. A re-poll was conducted using spare EVM, calling all voters in the vicinity to vote again.
The polling time was extended and results were declared around 8 pm.
Five polling stations across the country used spare EVMs in the early morning hours as the EVMs encountered errors reading records.
