Those who registered their names in the voter list by September 12 will be eligible to vote in the House of Representatives election scheduled for March 5, 2026.
According to the Voter List Act of 2016, once the election date is announced, no new names will be registered for that election. This means that since the election date has already been announced, new voter registrations are now closed.
However, if someone registered their name in the voter list while obtaining their citizenship certificate and they complete 18 years by the day before the upcoming election, i.e., March 4, 2026, they will also be eligible to vote.
Suppose your daughter or son completed 16 years on March 4, 2024. You immediately obtained their citizenship certificate and registered their name in the voter list. By the time of the general election on March 5, 2026, they will have just completed 18 years, making them eligible to vote. In such cases, they can vote by presenting their citizenship certificate.
However, if their name was not registered in the voter list at the time of obtaining citizenship or afterward, they will not be eligible to vote.
Many District Administration and Area Administration offices encourage people to register their names in the voter list when they apply for citizenship. Therefore, voter registration continues, except during election periods.
According to data provided by the Election Commission up to April 13, 2025, there are 18,148,654 registered voters, which is 160,054 more than the voters during the previous House of Representatives election.
In the 2022 House of Representatives election, there were 17,988,570 voters. The election date was announced on August 4, 2022, after which voter registration was closed. However, those who completed 18 years by November 19, 2022, were allowed to vote in the election held on November 20, 2022.
Based on the Election Commission’s data, 160,084 new voters were added in the 28 months from December 2022 to April 2025, averaging 5,717 new voters per month.
Using this trend, it is estimated that around 28,000 additional voters were added from April to September 2025. Thus, approximately 18,176,000 voters are expected for the upcoming election.
However, the exact number of voters cannot be stated with certainty right now as the Election Commission will soon call for objections and claims regarding the names in the voter list. In the 2022 election, five days were provided for such claims and objections. During this period, duplicate names and details of deceased individuals are removed at election offices.
Following the protests on September 8 and 9, former chief justice Sushila Karki was appointed prime minister as per the proposal of Gen Z youths and has already assumed office. After taking the oath, PM Karki held a Cabinet meeting at the President’s Office, Sheetal Niwas, where she recommended to the president to dissolve the House of Representatives and announce elections for March 5, 2026.
As no voter registration takes place after the election date is announced, many Gen Z youths have been left out of the voter list. Therefore, there have also been calls to reopen voter registration. However, since the law prohibits this, the government needs to bring an ordinance to reopen voter registration. Otherwise, no new registrations will be allowed.
An Election Commission official indicated that a new decision could be reached regarding the matter after further discussions among the commissioners.
“Given the special circumstances in the country right now and the sudden election announcement, we haven’t yet reached a decision on whether to allow some time for voter registration. A decision could be made regarding this after discussions among the commissioners,” the official said.
