Patriotic Party enrolls dozens YSP voters as polling officers to block voting

People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Press Office on May 14 announced that around two thousand people in southeastern Gaziantep province, who are mostly Green and Left Party voters, were unable to vote because they had been registered as polling officials from the Patriotic Party without being informed.

Sunday May 14 2023 03:00 pm

The voters who cannot vote wait for their documents.

Duvar English

Nearly two thousand people in southeastern Gaziantep province, who were Green Left Party (YSP) voters, have been registered as members of the ballot committee in polling stations on behalf of the Patriotic Party without their knowledge.

The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Press Office on May 14 announced that most of the voters were elderly and illiterate who became aware of the situation when they went to their registered polling stations.

Members of the ballot committee can only vote in the polling stations where they are assigned as official members with a special document. Most of the aforementioned voters do not have the said document as they learn about their “posts” on election day; hence, they can vote neither in their registered polling stations nor in the polling stations where they were “enrolled.”

The District Election Board stated that the voters can cast their votes when they receive the necessary documents from the institution.

The HDP and YSP’s Election Monitoring and Coordination Center said that they “will take the necessary steps to avert this move against the opposition voters.”