‘Vote and Beyond’ Election Monitoring Organization Releases Report on Referendum

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Having monitored the referendum on the Constitutional Amendment Package Vote and Beyond (Oy ve Ötesi), an initiative aiming for transparency during election processes has released its report on the referendum held on April 16.

Having accessed 94% of the poll protocols and compared its own results with the ones from the Supreme Election Board (YSK), Vote and Beyond has detected that there was inconsistency in approximately 100,000 votes.

YSK's decision

Stating that their studies were only based on the Election Law No: 298 and the circulars and decisions of the YSK which organized every step of the referendum in accordance with this law, Vote and Beyond pointed out in its report that the decision of YSK on the day of referendum to consider the unsealed ballot papers valid, contradicted with the Election Law and the Circular No: 135.

The organization also stated that the decision of the referendum had also tarnished the transparency of the referendum and its compliance with the law beyond repair.

The data in the report

The data acquired in the report are as follows:

* Of 166,679 protocols in total, 158,181 were confirmed in T3 - Turkey Protocols Confirmation system.

* Having cross-checked 94.9% of the protocols in total, only less than 40% of the protocols could be cross-checked in Bayburt, Erzurum, Ağrı and Gümüşhane provinces.

* Inconsistency in 99,680 votes in 290 ballot boxes were detected in thorough comparison of the results. This constitutes 0.22% of all valid votes.

Ballot boxes in which there were 100% "Yes" or "No" votes

* "Yes" votes: in 960 ballot boxes / 89,158 votes in total

* "No" votes: in 173 ballot boxes / 6,739 votes in total

Cases in which number of votes used exceed the number of voters

* In 2,397 ballot boxes, more votes were found than the number of voters. (EKN/DG)