How does the election work?
During the voting process, ballot boxes are watched over by officials from the Supreme Election Council (YSK) and the provincial (il) and regional (ilce) election councils, as well as representatives from various parties. Once it concludes, observers with party affiliations (musahit) accompany the officials and representatives in the public counting of the votes.
The number of envelopes in the box will be counted, and then each will be opened with the result read out loud. Observers and officials will tally the results on a piece of paper, periodically comparing tallies to avoid any mismatch. When all the envelopes have been opened, the officials attempt to agree on a final count. If they do, a consolidated document is presented to the provincial election councils and entered into the Supreme Election Council database. If there are disagreements between the officials, objections may be filed.
If a party does not dispatch a representative to a ballot box, anyone there may volunteer as an observer for the party. The volunteer’s political affiliation is not questioned by the officials present.
Vote count documents with the “wet signatures” (islak imza) of ballot box officials are generally considered the standard of truth, as their contents must be verified by a diversity of political party representatives. These documents also have the implicit approval of the general public: all citizens have a right to watch the proceedings, and to object to any witnessed wrongdoing.
Political party representatives may deliver their own tallies to their party centers, where independent counts may be kept in order to substantiate potential objections to results announced by the Supreme Election Council.
Sunday, May 14
The first round of the election concluded with 49.5% of the vote for Erdogan and 44.9% of the vote for Kilicdaroglu. The second round will take place on Sunday, May 28.
O.B. Erkan, wife of AKP MP candidate Necmettin Erkan, attempted to vote in Kirsehir province at a ballot box where she was not registered. The incident report reads:
“In the elections on May 14, 2023, at ballot box number 1197, a person [O.B. Erkan] assigned to a different ballot box was given a ballot and envelope. She voted in the curtained booth and made to cast the vote into [1197], but was prevented by an official.“
Necmettin Erkan responded: “The official gave both of us ballots and envelopes. I said my wife was registered to vote at a different box. We returned my wife’s ballot. She did not enter the booth and did not use the materials we were handed… The error belongs not to us, but to these officials.“
Green Left Party (Yesil Sol Parti) MP candidates in Diyarbakir province claimed that Green Left supporters were prevented from voting:
“When our countrymen tried to vote at their assigned boxes, they saw that their names were marked with the words ‘Because this person is a ballot box official (sandik kurulu gorevlisi), they cannot vote.’
Upon investigation, we discovered that higher-ups in the Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi), who had access to the personal information of voters, registered thousands of them as ballot box officials without their knowledge or consent. The documentation they would need to vote in their special role was delivered to the Patriotic Party.
These voters therefore had to go to election councils (secim kurullari) and wait long hours to receive their documentation. They then were required to vote at the schools [where ballot boxes are set up] at which they were registered as officials.
It is very clear that their right to vote was violated using unconstitutional trickery… It must be known that these attempts to [subvert the people’s will] were made especially in regions where the Green Left [party focused on Kurdish issues] is very popular.
A few days before the election, the current government called to the Kurdish people: ‘We have fought with much strength to deliver you the rights which are halal like the white milk of your mothers, [which comes from God.]‘ Yet they deny [Kurds] the most fundamental right to elect he who governs them.“
Green Left members filed objections with the provincial election council (Il Secim Kurulu) for the vote counts in Diyarbakir to be considered illegitimate, and for an intermediate round of elections to be held within the province. The council refused their request.
300 police officers voted in the Iskenderun region of Hatay province when they had no documentation to permit this.
In the Samandag region of Hatay province, 300 citizens were registered to vote at a single address where none of them lived.
At box 1154 in the Karakopru region of Sanliurfa province, the counting of the vote revealed 173 votes for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 143 votes for Kemal Kilicdaroglu, 6 votes for Sinan Ogan and 0 votes for Muharrem Ince, who withdrew from the presidential election on May 12.
These votes were recorded in the Supreme Election Council (YSK) database as 173 votes for Erdogan, 0 votes for Kilicdaroglu, 143 votes for Ince and 6 votes for Ogan.
Official results claim that 62% of citizens in Sanliurfa province voted for Erdogan in the first round.
Ballot box officials in Izmir province waited for hours in long lines outside regional election councils to deliver sacks of opened ballots.
Similarly long lines tormented officials in Antalya and Diyarbakir provinces. It remains unclear why the reception and entering of the votes into databases proceeded so slowly: in the 2018 elections, all counts had been completed and recorded by 9 PM. This time, it was announced at midnight that some data had still not been entered into the system.
In the Tarsus region of Mersin province, four people were injured in a knife fight which erupted during the counting of the votes in an elementary school building.
An IYI Party-affiliated ballot box official in the Akcakale region of Sanliurfa province was scalded with boiling water for attempting to prevent multiple people from entering the voting booth at the same time.
CHP-affiliated ballot box officials were beaten at a school in the Harran region of Sanliurfa province before certain voters cast multiple votes back to back for Erdogan. They filmed and posted the process on social media.
The governorship of Sanliurfa denied that any such beating or fraud had taken place.
A fire began at a high school in the Uskudar region of Istanbul province during voting. It was blamed on faulty electrical wiring.
A CHP MP candidate stated, “The smoke affected us a little but the ballot boxes were recovered. We are continuing the voting process at the same place. We are untroubled… Our ballot box officials at this school are still on duty.”
Tuesday, May 16
The Green Left Party published a list of ballot boxes where officials noted manipulations of the vote count. Items from the list include:
At box 1094 in central Hakkari province, 229 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the AKP.
At box 1120 in the Haliliye region of Sanliurfa province, 82 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the Justice Union Party (Adalet Birlik Partisi).
At box 1069 in the Siverek region of Sanliurfa province, 74 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a right-wing party which stands together with the AKP as part of the People’s Alliance (Cumhur Ittifaki).
At box 1051 in central Batman province, 232 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the Innovation Party (Yenilik Partisi).
At box 1069 in the Siverek region of Sanliurfa province, 74 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a right-wing party which stands together with the AKP as part of the People’s Alliance (Cumhur Ittifaki).
At box 1035 in the Nusaybin region of Mardin province, 225 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the MHP.
At box 2252 in the Kayapinar region of Diyarbakir province, 198 votes cast for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the MHP.
At boxes 1032 and 1145 in the Silvan region of Sanliurfa province, 228 and 125 votes cast respectively for the Green Left Party were recorded as having been cast for the MHP.
The Turkish Workers’ Party (Turkiye Isci Partisi) objected to vote counts at 500 ballot boxes in Izmir province. Party member Ozgur Urfa stated,
“The objections our party files to the regional election councils are being rejected without consideration. Even though we have attached to our objections signed documents [showing discrepancies with the official results], they are being refused for ‘lack of evidence’ and for ‘groundlessness’. We will now carry our objections to the provincial election council.“
Vice president of the party Dogan Ergun continued:
“We saw the same strategy implemented in the [2017 constitutional] referendum: AKP supporters were the dominant — and at times the only — monitors at many ballot boxes… they recorded all the uncast votes as being cast for themselves.
How do we know this? Statistically it is impossible that more than 95% of registered voters could reach the ballot boxes on election day. It is certain that after the voter lists come out, some people grow sick or die… Yet the Supreme Election Council claims 19,562 ballot boxes had over 95% participation of assigned voters, and 6,991 boxes over 98%. All these boxes combined yielded 59% of their vote to the People’s Alliance.
At some boxes all the registered voters participate, and then all the officials and perhaps even the police officers present cast additional votes. At 4,841 boxes, over 100% of assigned citizens voted. These boxes are concentrated in Mus and Sanliurfa provinces. [We believe] that these extra votes were cast for the MHP… in Osmaniye province, MHP received over 50% of the vote only at 27 boxes. In Sanliurfa, this number was 141!“
Although second-round voting at ballot boxes abroad was supposed to run from May 20 to 24, the window was shortened to two days for all countries where Kemal Kilicdaroglu had received over 60% of the vote in the first round: citizens registered as living in the United States, Ireland, England, Canada, Australia and Japan among other places could only vote from May 20 to 22 under this decision, while those in Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands — where Erdogan received over 60% of the vote — were given all four days.
In Portugal, where Kilicdaroglu received a record 91% of the vote in the first round, second-round voting was restricted to May 21 — only one day.
However, this decision was reversed upon objections by CHP representatives to the Supreme Election Council, permitting all voters abroad to visit their assigned boxes in the same four-day period.
Friday, May 19
Donations collected to help those affected by the February earthquakes were distributed by the Ministry of Family and Social Services (Aile ve Sosyal Hizmetler Bakanligi) to specific women whose names had been placed on a list by officials at a family health center. CHP representatives expressed outrage that resources gathered by the public to assist the public had been used as “election bribes” to convince those in the region to vote for Erdogan in exchange for various goods.
Saturday, May 20
A non-citizen voted in place of her mother, a Palestinian-born Turkish citizen, at the consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The issue was reported by officials to the local election council.
Monday, May 22
Sinan Ogan, who received about 2.8 million votes in the first round of elections, pledged his support to Erdogan in the second round.
Ogan has a long record of criticizing Erdogan’s style and politics. In 2014, he was punched in the face by “60 [AKP] dogs” in the National Assembly for calling them “racist and fascist”.
Friday, May 26
Erdogan slipped out of consciousness on live television as he was speaking about current affairs. The camera rolled away from him for a brief interlude as he sat in a semblance of sleep.
CHP supporters handing out flyers in Nigde province were arrested for “insulting the president”.
CHP Women’s Forces (Kadin Kollari) were attacked in Denizli province by small business owners who yelled, “You are terrorists!“
Passerby intervened on behalf of the women, fighting back the four assailants. “They called my sisters terrorists, PKK members,” one said. “I had to step in.“
A man in the Kusadasi region of Aydin province received voter registration documentation for someone supposedly living in the house he has shared with his wife and son for the past 13 years. “I think this is fraud [to generate fake voters],“ he said.
A woman in the same neighborhood received her brother’s voter registration documentation although he has been in prison for 11 years. “This is the first time we’ve been delivered these documents,“ she said. “How can a man in prison be authorized to vote?“
Saturday, May 27
A woman in central Sanliurfa province ripped apart Kilicdaroglu posters in the street, shouting “CHP has no business in Sanliurfa!“ Passerby told her “Why are you tearing this poster? Go vote for the AKP if you want, but leave the poster alone.“ She responded: “I don’t want the AKP either. Those who spare a thought for their mothers and sisters should let me do as I need.“
A little note:
Although much more than this happened in the past two weeks, I hope this eclectic outline will be of use to you.