Voters are facing difficulties accessing election information on voting day using the Election Commission app developed at a cost of Tk 210 million.

The app called ‘Smart Election Management’ was supposed to provide information on polling centres, percentage of votes, and other election-related information. But it failed to provide instant information once the voting began on Sunday.

It takes an hour to receive the required information after submitting the NID and date of birth in the app system. In some cases, the app doesn’t work at all. This may lead to serious trouble for both voters and the election observers.

On Thursday, Chief Election Commissioner Habibul Awal said the app was developed to ensure public trust in the electoral process.

He claimed the app would provide updated information every two hours on voting day and allow the public to learn of any irregularities at polling centres.

But no information was available through the app on the morning of election day. The ‘result analysis’ option in the app only showed the words: ‘This feature is coming soon.’

Most people were unaware of the app due to the lack of a publicity campaign and those who knew of it did not benefit.

Jannatul Meem came to cast her vote at the Non-local Free School in the Dhaka-16 constituency. A first time voter, Meem had to return without casting her ballot due to a glitch in the voting app.

“I searched for the polling centre designated for me in the app and came here. Now they asked me for a voter slip at the centre. When I tried to log in to the app, it never responded. It showed no information. I waited for half an hour and am now returning home [without casting my vote.]”

Raihan Ahmed came to the Rashid Ideal High School centre to cast his vote, but found his voter ID information did not match the voter list in the centre.

“I came here following the app but the info isn’t matching. I can’t even log into the app now,” he said.

A large number of people were logging into the app at the same time which might have put pressure on the app and caused issues, said Ashraf Hossain, system manager at the Election Commission.

“We can see the rate of votes cast every two hours but we will enquire why the public is unable to find information through the app,” he said.

The EC official, however, could not provide the percentage of votes cast in the first two hours of voting day.

“It’s taking a little time to coordinate. We hope that you will know it soon,” he said.