With four days to go until snap elections on June 24, Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK) has decided to remove a requirement that ballots be stamped by polling station officials in order to be considered valid and counted, according to a report by the Cumhuriyet daily. The YSK wrote in a recent circular that envelopes required the official stamp to be considered valid except in cases where there was no stamp from polling station officials but that the YSK emblem, watermark and stamps from the district electoral board were visible. According to a report by online news outlet Ahval, Twitter user Mahir Durmaz explained that the ballot box officials’ stamps were key to the security of the vote.
“The first thing done in the morning [of the election] is the stamping; the votes are counted three times. The count and checking procedures are recorded in a log. Then if these types of [unstamped] votes come in, they are separated as void, and if someone appeals they can go to the YSK and there will be concrete evidence such as ‘400 votes and envelopes were stamped and counted three times’,” he said.
“There are two critical procedures: Don’t sign the logbook like a sheep at 7 or 8 in the morning [the most common mistake, don’t sign it blank], and log everything done, whether proper or not, into the logbook, since if you leave it to the end there could be duplicity.”
Full Article: Turkish election watchdog removes key ballot security measure ahead of critical polls – Stockholm Center for Freedom.