The Election Commission (EC) is set to reintroduce the ‘no vote’ option in parliamentary polls and eliminate the provision for electronic voting machines (EVMs), under a proposed amendment to the Representation of the People Order (RPO).

Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah announced the proposal on Sunday after a commission meeting at the EC headquarters in Dhaka’s Agargaon.

“If there is only one candidate in a constituency, they will have to compete against the ‘no vote’, and if ‘no’ gets highest votes, polls in that constituency will be held again,” he said.

The ‘no vote’ system was introduced months before the December 2008 election as citizens’ rights to say no against all candidates on the ballot, if they didn’t like any of them.

If the symbol for ‘none of the above candidates’, known as the ‘No’ vote, in any constituency registered more than 50% of votes cast, the returning officer would cancel the results of that seat and a re-vote would be held, according to the provision repealed by the Hasina government in February 2009.

Sanaullah said the proposed amendment in the RPO also includes the restoration of EC’s authority to annul the results of an entire constituency in case of electoral irregularities.

He also stated that 22 new political parties that applied for registration have passed the EC’s initial screening. The commission will make the final decision after field-level verification, he added.