Critics in Turkey Question Credibility of Judges Who Oversaw Vote
At 4:10 p.m. — with counting already underway in eastern Turkey
and 50 minutes before the polls would close in populous western Turkey — Recep Ozer, the observer representing Mr. Erdogan’s party, asked the board to retroactively allow election officials to count unstamped ballots.
By PATRICK KINGSLEYAPRIL 25, 2017
ANKARA, Turkey — The credibility of the judges who oversaw Turkey’s referendum last week is being called into question
because most of them were hastily appointed when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan purged the judiciary after last summer’s failed coup.
Koray Caliskan said that The fact that eight of the 11 judges on the board were appointed during a crackdown on the judiciary,
and amid such an environment of fear, raises questions about their neutrality and their willingness to vote against the government,
But the legitimacy of Mr. Erdogan’s victory has been tainted by accusations of voter fraud at polling stations across the country —
and by an odd series of erratic decisions on the day of the vote by the judges who head the electoral commission.
Instead, he said he had information that thousands of legitimate voters had innocently used invalid ballots
because inexperienced election officials did not realize the ballots needed to be stamped, or had not had time to do so.
But the single biggest controversy was the last-minute decision by the electoral commission to override electoral law and allow officials to count what the opposition says are millions of votes
that lacked an official stamp proving their authenticity.
