Polling staff visiting an elderly voter in Shan State for the advance voting. Advance voting was also supposed to follow the standard operating procedures (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Health and Sports (MOHS) to ensure safe polling operations. The SOP requires all advance voters to properly wear a face mask, maintain a six-feet social distance, show their national registration card (NRC) in a plastic bag and sanitise hands before and after casting the ballot. It also requires polling staff who arrange advance voting for hospitalised COVID-19 patients to wear full PPE, discard the pen or stamp after every single use and disinfect the envelopes containing advance ballots when they are taken out from the isolation room. Out-of-Constituency Advance Voting 109,470 Myanmar nationals living overseas registered for advance voting, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 8. It was a threefold increase from 34,697 in the 2015 general elections, which showed rising voter awareness among the migrant community living abroad. However, the proportion of registered voters remained extremely low when compared to the estimated four million Myanmar citizens living overseas 9. In Thailand and Malaysia, which have the highest numbers of Myanmar expatriates, only 39,000 10 out of nearly 3 million 11 and 6,000 out of 600,000 12, respectively, registered to cast their ballots. Furthermore, nearly 8,000 applications were reportedly rejected by the UEC, many of which because they were not sent to their respective township election sub-commissions for 8 https://www.irrawaddy.com/elections/myanmars-election-body-faces-crisis-confidence-ahead-election.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/elections/many-myanmar-migrants-in-thailand-to-be-denied-vote-as-extrapolling-stations-ruled-out.html 10 http://www.mizzima.com/article/situation-casting-absentee-ballots-foreign-countries-myanmar-nationals 11 https://www.mmtimes.com/news/embassies-urge-myanmar-expats-register-vote.html 12 https://www.mmtimes.com/news/advance-voting-malaysia-set-october-9-11.html 9 12