Were dead people’s votes cast?

Much that happened on the election day has turned into question marks and the question marks have grown larger in the ensuing week and clear and rational replies have not been forthcoming in many cases. The events and questions plaguing people’s minds are as follow:

 Does the Supreme Election Council not know the number of ballot boxes?

 The Supreme Election Council (SEC) promulgated its resolution on the number of ballot boxes in the repeat edition of the Official Gazette of Friday 4 May. The said resolution number 371 of the SEC contains the wording, “Domestically, 56,345,891 voters will vote at 181,129 ballot boxes, while abroad an estimated 3,010,725 voters will vote at 3,167 ballot boxes.” That is, the SEC embarked on the task with an estimated total of 184,296 ballot boxes domestically and abroad. On the same day, conversely, the Anadolu Agency reported SEC Chair Sadi Güven as stating the estimated number of ballot boxes to be 180,896. However, going by the non-final results it announced on 26 June, the SEC had opened one hundred per cent of the 188,008 ballot boxes. The differences in the figures between announcements has remained inexplicable.

 Why were violations not prevented?

 Various violations such as block voting, interfering with voters’ intentions in polling booths, preventing votes from being cast, forcible open voting, removal of ballot box committee members and witnesses from polling stations and the presence of armed people in the vicinity of ballot boxes were experienced in many polling areas including Şırnak, Mardin, Diyarbakır, Van and Ankara, most notably Şanlıurfa Suruç. Elected village and quarter heads were seen to block people’s freedom to vote and prevent them from voting. Some who objected suffered injury by organised groups and lives were lost.

 How was the count done so quickly?

 Polling procedures had ended but the allegations of fraud had not. However, the SEC announced the ending of the ban on reporting the results at 18.45, one hour and forty-five minutes later. For it to become possible in one hour and forty-five minutes to report the counting procedures involving two ballots in one envelope constitutes a question mark in its own right.

 Were dead people’s votes cast?

 In March, before the early election decision had even been taken, former CHP Trabzon MP Haluk Pekşen came public with revelations based on documents emanating from the Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Civil Registry and Citizenship Affairs. He spoke of 2,537,000 people who were dead but for whom false identification particulars had been created through assigning them citizenship numbers. Indicating that changes had been made to the spelling in a dead person’s records and particulars such as dates of birth and death, he took his allegations a step forward and said, “You have also assigned citizenship numbers for people who never came into the world.” As to the aspect of Pekşen’s allegation having relevance for the 24 June elections, this is epitomised by the question to which no reply was forthcoming of “Were voters’ cards issued for these people who appear in the records as being alive?”

 How did Anadolu Agency conduct a “test?”

 With reference to the Anadolu Agency’s data, a further incident came to attention before the elections. In a programme broadcast on 19 June on the government-aligned TVnet station, a table showing shares of the vote in the election from the Anadolu Agency was screened. On the table, President Tayyip Erdoğan was shown to have received 53% of the vote, İnce 26%, Akşener 12%, Demirtaş 7%, Karamollaoğlu 1% and Perinçek 1%. Results from province to province were also given on the table that momentarily appeared on the screen. Anadolu Agency announced that this broadcast was a test to ensure that the results on the evening of the election would be conveyed to subscribers in an orderly manner. There is a notable similarity between the results to emerge from the ballot boxes set up on 24 June and the results in the test broadcast. Sözcü newspaper columnist Soner Yalçın has written that Anadolu Agency General Editor-in-Chief Murat Mutanoğlu was on the founding team of TVnet on whose screens the test broadcast appeared.

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