By EUDO CITIZENSHIP experts Zeynep Kadirbeyoglu (Bogazici University, Istanbul) and Aslı Okyay (European University Institute, Florence)

Voting from abroad refers to “provisions and procedures which enable some or all electors of a country who are temporarily or permanently outside the country to exercise their voting rights from outside the territory of the country.”  In Turkey, voting for citizens registered as residing abroad was made possible for the first time in 1987 through an amendment of the Law on Elections and Electoral Registers (Law No. 298, 26/4/1961) but citizens could only vote at the polling stations set up at the borders. This did not satisfy the definition of voting from abroad as those residing abroad had to travel to Turkey to cast their votes.

The Amendment (no. 4121) to Article 67 of the Constitution in 1995 aimed at opening room for new legislation enabling citizens residing abroad to exercise their right to vote from their country of residence. This amendment also gave the external voting right a constitutional basis. The 1995 Amendment (no. 4125) on the election law assigned the task of organising and managing elections abroad to the Supreme Election Board (YSK). Nevertheless, it also stated that if ‘factual or legal obstacles’ were encountered in organising elections abroad, the authorities could resort to setting up polling stations at the borders only. In the four general elections between 1995 and 2007, voting at the border remained the only method, justified with the presence of such legal and factual obstacles. Lawmakers in Turkey considered mail ballots as breaching the secrecy of the vote, whereas setting up polling stations in the emigrants’ countries of residence met objections raised by some of these countries (mainly Germany) which feared political protests and fights between rival political groups.

The Law on Elections and Electoral Register was amended again in 2008 to enable citizens living abroad to vote in general elections, the election of the president and referenda in Turkey. There were four different methods of voting inscribed in the law: postal voting, voting at the borders, at Turkish representations abroad and electronically. The Constitutional Court of Turkey struck down postal voting as it could violate the secrecy of voting. Before the 2011 general elections, government officials made declarations about ongoing negotiations with Germany to enable voting at the diplomatic representations. However, the Supreme Election Board’s February 2011 decision (no.120) ruled out that possibility for the elections of 2011. The Board referred to the insufficiently prepared infrastructure and the resulting unequal treatment between Turkish citizens in Germany and those residing in other countries if external voting were to be made possible only in Germany. A final amendment (no.6304) to the electoral law from May 2012 regulated methods of external voting (taking out the postal voting option), created an overseas voters’ registry, and defined the tasks of the YSK and the diplomatic representations in the organisation and management of external elections. The first time citizens residing abroad were able to vote in their countries of residence was the August 2014 Presidential elections which took place on 10 August 2014. External voters could either vote at the borders between July 26 and August 10 or in the polling stations set up in their country of residence between 31 July and 3 August 2014.

There was a total of 2,780,739 voters registered as external voters and a total of 1,186 ballot boxes were available outside the territory of Turkey. An additional 17,987 external voters were not assigned a polling station because they live in countries where polling stations were not set up and they could only vote at the borders. The turnout rate for the presidential elections amounted to 18.94 percent if the 8.62 percent voting at the external polling stations are added to the 10.62 percent voting at the borders.

In the case of the June 2015 general election, there were 9 additional new ballot stations – 6 of which were in Germany, 1 in the USA, 1 in Kazakhstan and 1 in the UK. Altogether stations were set up in 54 countries (112 locations and 3,664 ballot boxes). The voting at the borders began on 8 May 2015 and ended on 7 June 2015. There were 2,866,979 registered voters and the number of valid votes were 918,302 in external polling stations and 123,168 at the borders. This time, turnout rate had increased to 32.5 percent in the voting stations abroad whereas the rate at the border was only 4.3 percent. The length of voting period differed in external posts as can be seen from the following examples.

The length of voting period was from:

•8-31 May in Germany, Australia, Austria among others;

•16-31 May in USA;

•28-31 May in Romania;

•29-31 May in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Netherlands among others;

•30-31 May in Greece, Russia, UK among others;

•31 May in China, Sweden, Finland and Iran among others.

It is interesting to observe that in certain countries voting was possible over the course of three weeks whereas in others voters had only one day to cast their votes. The reasons for such variation in voting periods should be further examined.

External Voting Results:

The overall results of the General Elections 2015 are presented in Table 1 below. The table displays the results from the voting stations set up abroad (overseas ballots), at the borders and within Turkey (domestic ballots).

Table 1. Results taken at overseas, border and domestic ballot boxes in the 7 June 2015 legislative elections

Parties	Overseas Ballots	Border Ballots	Domestic Ballots	Domestic+External Aggregate
AKP	50.30%	46.41%	40.66%	40.87%
HDP	21.43%	11.80%	12.96%	13.12%
CHP	15.93%	26.95%	25.13%	24.95%
MHP	9.09%	10.55%	16.45%	16.29%

Source: YSK Decision No: 1415 and its Appendices 96/A-B-C-D, dated 18.06.2015, Official Gazette, 18.06.2015, No: 29390 (1st repetitive gazette).

Although there is an overseas voter registry, there is no special representation for the external electorate. External votes (i.e. votes cast abroad and at border polling stations) are distributed to electoral districts in Turkey in such a way that the percentage of external votes in the district vote is the same as the share of external votes in the total national vote. Similarly, the external votes that are added to the domestic votes for a particular party in each electoral district are determined by the total share of external votes out of all votes received by that party.  After the assimilation of the external votes to the votes cast within Turkey, the AKP won one seat each from the MHP and the CHP, whereas the HDP won one seat from the MHP.

There were significant differences between the votes received by the leading four parties in the voting stations abroad. Some examples of the vote shares are reported below (see Table 2 for an example of such differences between Germany and the US).

AKP (Justice and Development Party) received a higher share of votes in comparison to other parties in the Netherlands (64.31%), Austria (64.22%), Belgium (62.93%), Germany (53.65%), France (50.67%), Bosnia Herzegovina (46.38%), Turkmenistan (38.63%), Algeria (34.24%), Romania (34.12%), Egypt (32.39%), among others.

CHP (Republican People’s Party) received a higher share of votes in comparison to other parties in Spain (45.6%), USA (44.32%), Bulgaria (39.75%), Russia (39.26%), South Africa (30.28%), Kazakhstan (27.25%) among others.

HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) received a higher share of votes in comparison to other parties in Britain (59.31%), Japan (59.16%), Finland (57.80%), Switzerland (47.51%), Sweden (43.19%), Italy (43.1%), Canada (42.69%), Poland (40.63%), among others.

MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) received a higher share of votes in comparison to other parties in Albania (27.55%).

Table 2. Contrast between the distribution of votes in the case of the USA and Germany

	GERMANY (%)	USA (%)
AKP	53,65	16,41
CHP	15,98	44,32
HDP	17,49	24,05
MHP	9,72	9,07
Other	3,16	6,15

 

For a visual summary of statistics about overseas voting broken down by party and country, click here.  

Links to news reports

Today’s Zaman: Turkey’s Political Parties Step up to Mobilize Overseas Electors, Turkish Citizens in Germany Start to Vote in Turkish General Election, Dramatic Rise in AK Party Overseas Votes despite Failure at Home Sparks Suspicion of Vote Rigging

Anadolou Agency: US: 17,804 Turkish citizens vote in Turkey’s election

Daily Sabah : As participation rates rise, the importance of overseas votes increase

BGN news: Fight breaks out over allegation that Turkey’s overseas votes were trashed

Rudwa: Germany an important battleground in Turkey’s elections

Kurdish Daily News: Pro-Kurdish HDP becomes main opposition in overseas vote