Nearly 61 million electorates to cast votes in May 14 polls

ANKARA

A total of 60,904,499 people will be able to vote at 190,736 ballot boxes in the country for the presidential and 28th term parliamentary elections slated for May 14.

The Supreme Election Board (YSK) announced the number of voters who will cast their votes abroad and in Türkiye in the Official Gazette on March 24.

Accordingly, a total of 3,286,786 people will be able to vote at 4,969 ballot boxes abroad.

The printing of the ballot papers for the presidential election will begin on April 12, and the printing of the ballot papers to be used in the parliamentary elections will begin on April 19.

Considering voters abroad will start voting earlier, the YSK will send a template for the visually impaired to each ballot box.

A total of 249,670,310 combined ballot papers will be printed to be used on May 28 in case the parliamentary and presidential elections go to the second round.

For the elections, 814,120 visually impaired voting templates will be created, and these templates will be sent to the polling stations in Türkiye and abroad by the YSK.

Meanwhile, the signature process of those nominated for presidential elections by voters continues. Eleven independent names whose applications were accepted will try to collect 100,000 signatures until March 27. The deadline for the presidential nomination applications of political parties has expired.

Davut Turan, Doğu Perinçek, Erkan Trükten, Halil Murat Ünver, Hilmi Özden, İrfan Uzun, Muhammed Ali Fatih Erbakan, Muharrem İnce, Sinan Oğan, Tevfik Ahmet Özal and Yakup Türkal need to collect 100,000 signatures because they do not have a group in the parliament.

The presidential nominees whose applications will be confirmed by the YSK will be published in the Official Gazette on March 31, and a propaganda period for the presidential candidates will begin.

The political parties that agreed to build alliances started to submit the protocols to the YSK by March 18. If the parties change their mind or amend the protocols, they should notify the election watchdog on April 7 at the latest. On April 8, the parties will submit their candidates to the parliament so that the YSK can scrutinize the lists.