Only 178,960 Turkish expats to vote in first round

Sevil Erkuş ANKARA

Two private planes will collect ballots in Europe, which constitutes some 83% of the total votes abroad. AA PHoto

Only 178,960 Turkish citizens living abroad obtained an appointment to cast their vote in the first round of the presidential elections, while some 69,000 expatriates will vote in the second round, marking 248,287 appointments in total, a Turkish official said.

One of the reasons why the Turkish expats have not been rushing to the ballot box for Turkey’s presidential elections is most of the Turks living abroad are currently in Turkey for holiday and would have had to vote at land crossings, airports and ports, Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru told reporters on Aug. 1.

Though Turkish nationals have made online appointments to vote abroad in the first round of the presidential elections, the system automatically assigns appointments, he said.

Koru said some people are not familiar with using the Internet to make online appointments, adding the system of obtaining appointments is new for some Turkish voters.

Two private planes will collect ballots in Europe, which constitutes some 83% of the total votes abroad and deliver them to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on Aug. 3, while the rest of the votes from overseas will be delivered by a diplomatic courier, he noted.

The appointments on the YSK’s website did not match with the appointment dates at the ballot boxes’ computers, deputy chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Bülent Tezcan told reporters Aug. 1.

Koru confirmed a short term problem occurred in the ballot boxes on July 31, but the problem about the system was sorted by the YSK the same day.

The overseas electorate has been voting at Turkey’s 73 diplomatic missions and at the 30 other designated areas in 53 countries between July 31 and Aug. 3.

The total number of Turkish electorate eligible to vote living abroad is 2,780,757, constituting 5 percent of the total number eligible to vote.