Independent ballot inspectors needed

Erol Tuncer, the head of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, or TESAV, said despite the praise showered on the new Address-Based Electronic Census System, certain gaps in the system allowed people to tamper with it. "The mistakes in the new system were directly reflected in the voter lists," he said.

Even though he has lived in the same house for the past 21 years, Tuncer’s own name suddenly disappeared from the voter registration lists put up at the local muhtar, or headman’s offices, he said.

He added: "Many thousands face the same problem but only a few lodge a complaint."The Galatasaray University rector, Professor Yıldızhan Yayla, said independent inspection bodies must be established in order to prevent tampering with voter rolls. "The public also needs to be alert against tampering when the inspection mechanism fails," Yayla said, adding that the government ties of inspection authorities harmed the legitimacy of elections.

Though the mistakes may have a reasonable explanation, Yayla said the census was incorrect and that those who could tamper with the figures had done so. "Turkey is the only country that has changed its election system seven times," Tuncer said. Professor İbrahim Kaboğlu from the Marmara University Faculty of Law in Istanbul said every single article of the country’s election law had been changed since it was passed in 1961. "This shows how unstable elections are in Turkey," he said.

The sudden 6-million-person increase in the number of registered voters has harmed trust in democracy, said Professor Fuat Keyman of the Koç University Department of International Relations in Istanbul, adding: "While the elections show there is democracy in Turkey, they do not necessarily mean democracy is vibrant and healthy."