Many ballot box results incorrectly recorded into Turkish election council’s database

Duvar English

Following Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections, many opposition parties filed objections to the results after the data in the Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) system was shared with political parties. When the parties were able to compare the YSK database with wet-signed ballot box result reports, they realized that there are many irregularities in favor of the ruling parties. 

Also, voters able to check the “official” ballot box results from main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) website sts.chp.org.tr in order to compare them with the wet-signed reports.

In social media posts, voters stated that results were incorrectly recorded into the YSK’s system especially in some polling stations in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, where the Green Left Party (YSP) is particularly strong. Some social media users claimed that YSP’s votes were entered as belongs to the ruling coalition’s far-right partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) stated on his social media account that “YSP’s votes in many ballot boxes were shifted to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and MHP if the wet-signed reports are compared with the YSK data. We will not remain silent while the gains of our friends are swallowed by system operations.” 

The YSP’s election board representative Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki said that more than 1,000 ballot box result reports were incorrectly entered into the YSK system and that they objected to all of them. He said, "Almost all of our objections were resolved and the errors were corrected," and added "Is there an organized crime behind this? There is no evidence of that. For now, we will consider them as an incorrect entries.” 

Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) İzmir MP candidate İrfan Değirmenci announced that they objected to the election results in the province. He explained that their objections to the district election boards were rejected by all board members except those from the CHP.

On the other hand, the main opposition Nation Alliance’s silence regarding the issue attracted reaction. As of May 16 10.30 p.m., Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu did not comment on the issue. 

Felicity Party leader Temmel Karamollaoğlu said on his Twitter account, “Truth has a bad habit of coming out one day.” Future Party leader Ahmet Davutoğlu said that all ballot boxes should be re-examined if necessary.