New voting system fails vote of confidence test

A new electoral registry system has Turkey heading toward a shadowy local election process, one clouded in suspicion and uncertainty over the exact number of voters.

The recent law that sees the authority for electoral registers handed from the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, to the Interior Ministry is likely to create many problems over the reliability of the local elections in March 2009, according to experts.

"The recent amendment to the law that regulates the electoral register system and annuls the YSK's authority over electoral registers is a bomb fixed to the credibility of the local elections," Tarhan Erdem, public opinion poll analyst and daily Radikal comunist, told Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

The additional 6 million registered voters for the upcoming local elections, as a result of the 2007 address-based census, fueled debate last week among the political parties about the address-based census system.

The YSK has been the authority on electoral registers in the country since 1961, but with a new amendment to the law regulating elections the YSK was obliged to announce the list, which was prepared by the Interior Ministry's Population and Citizenship General Directorate based on the new address-based population registration system.

"The YSK prepared the electoral registers under the supervision of the judiciary but the authority in this respect has now been passed to an executive power, the Interior Ministry. This is against the Constitution. The YSK no longer has the right to prepare and control the registers. Its power has been confined to publishing available electoral registers, which are based on other data. This is one of the weak chains of the new system," Erdem said.

The electoral registers have become more vulnerable to possible interventions by ruling governments or political parties, Erdem said, adding that the address-based population registration system itself bore many critical and weak points.
Under the previous system, the electoral registers were delivered by the YSK's Provincial Election Boards to the neighborhood headman's offices, or muhtarlıklar, where local residents could check and update their information on lists posted in the offices as well as raise objections. The process could be handled more directly and easily. The headman's offices had more accurate and updated information about the residents' address details. The new system, however, excluded the authority of the headman's office and granted the initiative to the interviewers who conducted the address-based census. In the new system, the interviewers visit all addresses in the country one-by-one and the interviewer collects the personal information and address details of the residents in each neighborhood.

"There are two possible loopholes. The system is based on declarations and the interviewers have to register what the household said. If the interviewee gives wrong information about the number in that household, that number is registered by the interviewer as the interviewer isn't obliged to check the information with the headman's office," Erdem said.

In some cases, the interviewer did not register any household information if the residents were absent, leaving open to question if an interviewer returned for the information.

Erdem said the local elections should not be based on the address-based census system.

"The address-based census system is meant to identify the population of Turkey, while the preparation of the electoral registers seeks to pick out the electorate only. These are two different things. The problem is that shortfalls in the census system are then completely conveyed to the system for local elections," he said.

Meanwhile, Erol Tuncer, Director of the Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Studies, or TESAV, said the previous system was more reliable and the increase in the number of voters itself was a clear indication of a possible mistake in the new system.

"I have been living in the same neighborhood for 21 years. But when I looked at the list posted in our headman's office, I couldn't find my name and my family's names there. The interviewer probably came to my house when we were on holiday and didn't register us. My later search revealed that I was registered as a citizen whose address was unknown," he said.