Go ‘Vote and Beyond...’ Go...

This platform is the best thing we have experienced since the Gezi Park movement in 2013. 

Yay... They have already reached 43,000 volunteers. Do not just stay there! Go and sign up to be a volunteer; protect your vote. 

Their website is www.oyveotesi.org.

In this atmosphere of chaos, this “Oy ve Ötesi,” meaning “Vote and Beyond” is a fresh breath, an impartial formation for election observation that gives hope to all of us. 

They are present in 46 provinces. 

Yay! The participants are 51 percent women, 49 percent men. This is a rate that shows how much women care about election security. However, unfortunately, these active women are not represented in the parliament with a similar ratio. Only 18 percent of the parliament is women. I am so certain that if 50 percent of the parliament were women, we would live in a completely different Turkey. 

The biggest participation is from the three big cities, Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir. But other provinces are also very strong this time. 

Oy ve Ötesi organized an activity called “witnesses wanted” with a hashtag #müsahitaranıyor on Sunday [Oct. 18]. 

It was a very pleasant event. They were connected to other cities. Volunteers shared their phone numbers from social media accounts so that they could be called. 

It was an incredibly proud moment for Oy ve Ötesi. For eight hours, volunteers signed up to be election observers.  I believe they will reach 100,000 in 10 days and even exceed this number. 

Bring a friend 

“If everyone takes at least one friend with them, then this business is over” is their slogan. I think it would be good if they repeat Sunday’s activity one more time because in one day (actually, eight hours) there was an equivalent of one week of participation. In one day, 3,000 people registered. 

In the provinces of Kahramanmaraş, Şanlıurfa, Adıyaman and Elazığ, the volunteer figures were not adequate. With the activity on Sunday, there has been a significant increase; they still need more. 

Everything is going fine in Oy ve Ötesi but they are still in need of certain things. 

For example, they need lawyers and polling center supervisors who are responsible for the entire building. 

They want one lawyer and one supervisor for every building. There are about 14,000 buildings. The platform only has 6,000 supervisors; they need 8,000 more. 

The duty of the polling center supervisor is to coordinate polling station observers, to issue observer ID cards and to be in continuous contact with district officials. 

The number of lawyers who have volunteered is 1,000. While volunteers observe the polling, lawyers protect the rights of the volunteers. They are short of lawyers. And the more lawyers there are, the better it is. The presence of lawyers is very valuable. 

As a last point, those who have volunteered on June 7 should renew their registration to be able to work on Nov. 1 as well.