Parties challenge election board’s vote data

ANKARA

Several political parties have objected to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) on the grounds of alleged irregularities in vote counting and incorrect entry of data in the parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) detected inconsistencies at a total of 2,269 ballot boxes in the presidential election and 4,285 in the parliamentary election, the main opposition party’s deputy chair Muharrem Erkek said at a press conference on May 17.

“We’ve made all the necessary objections. We’re tracking every single vote, even if it won’t change the overall results,” he said.

The CHP reclaimed the votes when a mismatch appeared between its data obtained from the ballot box minutes by its officials at polling booths and the data of the YSK.

Erkek also called on millions of citizens who didn’t cast a vote on May 14 to go to the polls in the second round.

The Green Left Party (YSP) also claimed in a written statement on May 16 that the YSK recorded hundreds of ballot box result reports incorrectly. The ballots cast for the party were entered as belonging to the ruling People Alliance partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), it said.

The Workers’ Party of Türkiye (TİP), part of the Labor and Freedom Alliance led by the YSP, announced that they appealed to the election board regarding the ballot boxes from all over Türkiye.

The YSK will send the final results to the relevant authorities to be announced on May 19 after deciding on the objections, whose deadline has already expired.