A total of 42,441 registered voters cast their votes at the postal ballot facilitation booths set up across the country for the National Council (NC) elections from April 12-14.
Of this, 20,637 were female and 21,804, male. A total of 60,590 had registered for the postal ballot facilitation and mobile booths while 88,915 eligible voters registered for the postal ballot services.
Sixty nine facilitation booths were set up across the country.
A total of 699 registered voters cast their vote in nine mobile facilitation booths of which 65 were female and 634, male.
The overall voter turnout of was 70%.
The voter turnout was highest at Lhuntse with 81% followed by Bumthang with 80% while Pemagatshel saw the lowest with 62%.
Though the Thimphu had the highest registered voters for postal ballot facilitation booth with 15,737, the postal voter turnout was only 63%.
A total of 469 booth officials were appointed to serve at the 69 postal ballot facilitation booths and nine mobile booths with 77 independent observers, in addition to the process observation by national and micro observers across the country.
The postal ballots cast were, as per procedure, handed over at the end of each day to Bhutan Post for delivery to respective Returning Officers for counting on the poll day which fell yesterday. The total number of postal ballot envelopes at the end of each day were counted and crossed-checked against the Electoral Roll Search System (ERSS) used in the booths to ensure that the number of registered voters verified against the ERSS and issued postal ballots were the same as the number of postal ballot envelopes handed over to Bhutan Post to ensure there were no mistakes or errors of any kind in the process.
In the first council elections, while the commission received 20,992 postal ballot applications, only 23% of the votes were counted. In the second council elections 40,701 applications were received of which only 23,967 were valid postal ballots.
Dechen Dolkar from Thimphu
