Fake voter registration at the address of an empty warehouse in Istanbul

In Istanbul, a ‘false voter’ record was uncovered, apparently registered in the storeroom of a family apartment building. As reported by the Mezopotamya Agency (MA), the owner of the warehouse who lives in the same apartment, M.C., found out that fake voters were registered at the address of the warehouse when he checked the voter information sheets sent to his address.

The owner told MA that the building was built in 1998, that it is a family apartment, and that no tenant has moved into the building to date. In the video published on the MA website, M.C. describes the incident as follows: “We have been using the basement of the building as a storage room since the beginning. The mukhtar (neighborhood representative) delivered our polling cards to the apartment building. I noticed that there were two extra voter invitation cards. Both had the address of our building on them, but the voters’ register was our storage room.”

M.C. went to the Mukhtar for confirmation, but the Mukhtar told him he had no clue. In his interview, the owner explains how he continued to research: “I went to the District Registry Office, but they answered that they couldn’t give any names or information. They directed me to the archive department. The archive staff told me that the names written on the voter card were registered in the storeroom in 2018. However, this is not possible, because these names did not receive voter cards for the 2019 elections.”

At the archives, M.C. was asked to submit an application to cancel the registrations. However, the finalization of such an application could take too long and would not be a solution to the problem before the elections. M.C. explains that he considers this to be a case of irregularity: “It is not clear whether these people will vote at more than one polling station. This is outright vote stealing, in my opinion. I think that the ballot boxes should be protected and since I think that the government is doing this, I will go to the main opposition party officials and give them the poll cards and ask them not to let these names vote.”

M.C., who applied to the District Registry Office with a petition for the cancellation of the forged voting records, called on the public to be sensitive to the issue.