Dhaka, Jan. 29 -- More than 55,000 postal ballots cast by expatriate Bangladeshis have reached the country ahead of the Feb 12 general election.

On Thursday, Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission's OCV-SDI project, said 55,341 postal ballots had arrived in Bangladesh as of 10:30am.

He added that a total of 445,588 expatriates have voted so far.

Of them, 394,174 have already submitted their ballots to post offices or designated mailboxes in their respective countries after casting their votes.

The Election Commission has sent postal ballots to 766,862 expatriates ahead of the upcoming polls.

Of that number, 509,601 voters had received their ballots by Thursday morning.

The commission has urged expatriate voters to ...