More than 6,000 electors are over 100 years old: CHP

Rifat Başaran – ANKARA

There are currently 6,389 electors above the age of 100 in Turkey, according an analysis prepared by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) regarding potential voters for the upcoming polls. The oldest one is the 165-year-old Ayşe Ekici from the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

“There are 6,389 electors over 100 years old. Some of them are alive yet some are over 120. We have an elector born in 1854 named Ayşe Ekici. We have checked 14 voter lists and yet she seems to be an elector for the first time [this year],” Onursal Adıgüzel, CHP deputy chair in charge of information and communication technologies, has told daily Hürriyet.

“Two electors without surnames were detected. One is the 149-year-old Zülfü, registered in [the southeastern province of] Şanlıurfa and the other is the 148-year-old Ayşe registered in [southwestern province of] Aydın,” Adıgüzel added.

The CHP has analyzed elector registrations of 973 districts of Turkey’s 81 provinces and compared them with the registrations of the previous 14 elections.

The party has examined the electorate lists with respect to age analysis and the number of voters registered in a household.

The CHP will carry out the relevant works regarding election safety in three phases, Adıgüzel said.

The first phase involves checking the announced voter lists and comparing them with different methods, while the second phase will focus on election day and the third phase will cover the process of post-March 31.

When compared to the previous elections, the Orta district of the Central Anatolian province of Çankırı has seen a 95.47 percent rise in the number of electors, the CHP’s report said.

“While there were 8,379 voters registered in June 24 [2018 elections] in Orta district, the number has risen to 16,401 [for the upcoming election],” said Adıgüzel.

Following Orta, the Çamlıdere district of the capital Ankara was the place that saw the highest increase in the number of electorates, with a two-fold increase.

“In the June 24 [2018 elections], there were 6,561 electors [in Çamlıdere], but according to the last list announced by the Supreme Election Board [YSK], the number of electorates has risen up to 12,493. So, 6,286 new voters have come to [Çamlıdere]. Of this figure, 5,667 have transferred from other districts of Ankara,” the CHP deputy chair stated.

Adıgüzel also said that of citizens whose names were on the June 24, 2018 electorate lists, 923,796 are no longer on the recently announced lists for the upcoming elections. This is because some 233,937 have lost their lives since then, 206,630 have gone to serve military duty and 43,278 are convicts.

Some 375,107 previously registered voters have been reported to have disappeared from the electorate lists due to their lack of address record in the central civil registration system, Adıgüzel said.