The Election Commission has registered over one million new voters for the upcoming provincial and federal parliamentary elections as the extended deadline for enlisting ended on Saturday.

The EC said the number could rise to 1.2 million once the details of registration are received from all parts of the country.

The election authority started the regular voter registration process on July 16 from its regional and district offices. Since July 31, the special registration campaign has been conducted in all the local units.

The special campaign was scheduled to be over on Wednesday but the election commissioners on Tuesday decided to extend the deadline for both regular and special registration until August 19 reasoning that many people have yet to be enrolled in some districts.

The total registered voters in the last one month number double those listed during the three-and-a-half-month campaign conducted before the local elections.

The EC had registered around 0.53 million voters between November 11, 2016 and February 20, 2017, the day when the date of local elections was announced.

“Such an overwhelming response to the call for registration is due to the success of the first and second phases of local elections,” said EC Spokesperson Surya Sharma, adding that huge crowds of people waiting for registration were seen particularly in the districts where migrant population is high.

The EC said long queues were seen in Kathmandu Valley and other major cities such as Pokhara and Biratnagar although the crowd has thinned mostly elsewhere.

Election officials attribute this to the arrangement for registering voters in their place of stay but they will have to go to their home district for casting the vote.

Most of those freshly enlisted are the ones left out of the voter roll for local elections despite being old enough to vote, first time voters and migrants who want to change their place of voting.

According to EC officials, people as young as 16 can register after obtaining the citizenship. This means every one registered is not eligible to vote in the upcoming provincial and federal parliamentary elections as the age for franchise is 18 years.

A total of 14,054,482 citizens were listed as eligible voters for the local level elections.