Tweet by jailed politician Selahattin Demirtaş on fraud and irregularities

Following the announcement of the election results, the opposition parties began to object intensively after it was revealed that votes had been stolen in many provinces. Many documents of fraud and irregularities were posted on social media. As investigations and objections continue, former co-chairperson of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas, who is currently in detention, tweeted a comprehensive statement on election security.
Demirtas is of the opinion that if the ballot boxes are protected, they will definitely win, adding that there are certainly other forms of fraud, but they have no way of knowing what these are. Emphasizing that the most important evidence in vote counting is the report with the wet-ink signature, the detained politician explains that this report is signed by the presiding officer and the political party representatives of the polling station committee. If there are no objections to the report, the sealed ballot box will not be opened and recounted at any stage.
He also draws attention to the fact that if the members of the polling station committee are all AKP-MHP supporters, but they have registered themselves as representatives of opposition parties, the entire committee will consist of pro-government members: “If there are no observers while the votes are being counted, they can arrange the counting report as they wish, sign it on behalf of the YSP, CHP and IYI Party, and deliver a copy to the district office of the opposition parties.” In such a situation, opposition parties do not object because they trust and register the minutes in the system.
The tweet in which Demirtas explains the methods of fraud is followed by these words: “The Anadolu Agency is broadcasting the opening at a high rate, giving the impression that Erdogan has won for sure. The fraudulent minutes are not entered into the system in the first place, the data flow is slowed down for a few hours and it is observed whether the opposition has any evidence of forgery and whether they will object, when it becomes clear that the opposition did not detect the fraud and did not object to those ballot boxes, the fraudulent records are immediately entered into the system and the flow of data resumes. Thus, everything looks legal and proper. It is now impossible to detect fraud.”
Demirtas claims that there was a central digital base for this action and that the Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu was in charge of that base and adds: “If 150 votes are stolen from each of the 20.000 ballot boxes, that is 3 million votes, and this number is sufficient to change the outcome of the election.” He concludes with a few suggestions to prevent fraud. According to Demirtas, the district administrations appointing the poll watchers should not authorize anyone they do not know and are not sure of. At least two observers should be assigned to each ballot box in addition to the official poll watchers. Finally, he suggests that officials should return to the polling station at counting time to observe the count, take notes, ensure that the results are correctly recorded in the minutes, videotape the entire counting process and the final minutes, upload photos of the counting minutes to a website and make the website publicly available. “This is how Erdogan has been winning elections and the MHP has been kept at 10 percent for years,” Demirtas points out.