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Disabled and elderly cast votes via mobile ballot boxes in Turkish elections
Disabled and elderly cast votes via mobile ballot boxes in Turkish elections
Some 17,258 disabled and elderly voters in Turkey cast their votes from their houses and hospitals via mobile ballot boxes on June 24, a first in Turkish election history.
For the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections, the Supreme Election Board (YSK) prepared 1,303 mobile ballot boxes for 17,258 voters unable to go to polling stations because of their disability or sickness.
The boxes were brought to the houses or the facilities of the voters, who voted from their beds.
Among the voters that applied to the YSK to vote from home was main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) former leader and lawmaker candidate Deniz Baykal, who suffered from a seizure last year and is recovering. He cast his vote from the facility where he has been held for treatment.
Apart from the bed-bound voters, there are 668,106 disabled citizens and 2,738,031 voters who are older than 75 years of age.
For these citizens, the YSK prepared ballot boxes on the first floors of schools, used as polling stations in Turkey, to facilitate their reach to their boxes.
The mobile boxes’ regulation was among the amendments made in the election law prepared by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Some other parts of the law, however, had attracted criticism from opposition parties who said the regulation could pave way for election irregularities.
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