First year

Turkey: Voting from abroad in 2015 general elections

“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.”