Deceased voter marked as ‘voted’ during Turkey’s rigged referendum
While Turkey’s Supreme Board of Elections, as well as the government officials, have not showed any intention to investigate into the dubious referendum results in spite of both national and international calls, the ‘no’ block has been pressing for questions still lingering over the referendum on controversial constitutional amendments that are to give grand and unchecked powers to the president.
In addition to the scandalous last minute decision of the elections board to render unstamped ballots as valid, several other irregularities and cases of fraud that have also been reported leave the suspicions about the polling unanswered.
Having taken a role with around 15 thousand volunteers across the country on the polling day, the No and Beyond (Hayır ve Ötesi) platform gave statements yesterday (April 25) outlining their findings that show the polls were obviously rigged.
One of the most striking details that the platform representatives shared is with regards to several ballots boxes, mostly in southeastern provinces, in which the number of casted votes were either equal to or even more than the registered number of voters.
Drawing attention to the fact that the lists were prepared and closed for registration in the beginning of March, the representatives emphasized it is ‘unrealistic’ for a 100% turnout to be achieved in this many boxes, considering natural flow of life where death, illness, or other kinds of obstacles must have stood in the way of a number of voters even if as a small margin.
These particular boxes not only had a 100% turnout but also had 100% ‘Yes’ votes, which is also conflicting with the results of the previous elections (June 7th and November 1st elections of 2015) where especially the opposition party HDP had received considerable number of votes.
Platform members stated their research in the region with regards to these ‘block votes’ continue, adding one particular case in itself is enough for suspicions to grow further: a voter from Urfa’s Eyyübiye district who passed away on 31 March 2017 was marked in the poll records as ‘voted.’
Considering there are over 7 thousand ballot boxes – which accounts to over 1.5 million constituent - that had a %100 turnout, several possible ways of rigging are now suspected.
Further research in the related southeastern provinces will continue, the platform announced.
Source: https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/olen-yurttasa-bile-oy-kullandirilmis-156886.html