Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw during the first round of elections in the Luxor Governorate. While I saw many minor violations and procedures that left room for error, we witnessed no violence at the polling stations and no corruption on the scale of previous Egyptian elections, when ballot stuffing and vote buying seemed to be the name of the game.
The mood at the often chaotic polling centers was positive and excited. Most people indicated that they felt these elections were better than any they had previously experienced. Immediately evident was the level of interest and concern Egyptians felt about foreigners’ views on the elections’ success. My impression was that this concern stemmed from both the feeling that we were “experienced” in democracy and thus qualified to give our expert opinions as well as a deep concern that foreigners not think poorly of Egypt. Throughout the two days, voters and journalists at the polling stations asked us about our observations and opinions.
For the most part, voters and polling committee members were very welcoming. In the rural areas, children crowded around us, and adults competed to lead us around the polling centers. At other stations, however, we were treated with great suspicion. One judge told us that he did not like Americans because of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) should leave power. At an especially religious, conservative station in Karnak, where virtually all the men wore jalabiya and many women wore niqab, a large group of men crowded around us and quickly became very confrontational and angry. I would have preferred to leave, but after our Egyptian friend reassured them, they decided to let us enter.
Despite my overall positive experience observing the elections, I did witness a number of questionable activities, not all of which were electoral violations, at the over 30 polling centers I visited on Nov. 28 and 29. The most common were:
1. Polling committee members helping voters mark their ballots. This is allowed for persons with disabilities, but I only saw one instance in which a disabled man—in this case, blind—was assisted by a judge. In all other cases it seemed the voter asked for assistance because he or she was unsure what to do. In some cases the polling committee member actually marked the ballot for the voter, which, while permitted, could be problematic if the voter is illiterate and cannot verify that the ballot was marked according to his or her wish.
2. Lack of sufficient secrecy for voters. The open sides of the voting booths often faced the other people in the room. Many voters did not use the booths at all, instead opting to mark their ballots on a tabletop, on the ballot box, etc.
3. Active campaigning on polling center grounds. It is illegal for parties or candidates to campaign at the polling centers during elections. Nevertheless, people distributed campaign flyers and political party representatives staffed “information tables” to encourage voters to choose their party or candidates just before they entered the station to vote. My group witnessed several voters in polling stations holding campaign materials in their hands as they voted. These tables were outside almost every polling station. While the people at the tables claimed to be there to provide voters with their ID numbers for voting, the tables were clearly a campaign tool to sway voters just before they went inside. Virtually all were manned by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) or al-Nour Party representatives, but they were not always clearly marked, which may have led some voters to believe they were there purely to assist.
4. Late opening or early closing of polling stations. I arrived in Luxor at approximately 8:45 am on Nov. 28—forty-five minutes after the scheduled opening of the centers—but I saw at least one polling center that was still closed as I made my way into the city. Voters crowded around the outside fence, pounding on it or peering inside. At another polling center, the judge told us he would close at 7 pm, a full two hours before the scheduled closing time, but said he had opened the center early to make up for it. Several voters outside the station disputed the judge’s claim.
5. Inconsistency in the use of ink. There was no consistent procedure in place for inking voters. Voters chose which finger they inked, and some inked a large portion of their finger, while others only dipped their fingertips. Illiterate voters also used ink instead of signing the registration list, but the colors of the two inks were so similar that I initially thought a woman with two inky fingers had voted twice.
Other Observations
Additionally, I saw multiple people in the same voting booth, a woman holding money in her hand as she went to vote (a possible sign that her vote was bought), photocopies of ballots outside the polling stations, and a member of al-Nour wearing a reflective yellow vest outside the polling station providing “assistance” to voters (others confirmed seeing the same elsewhere). On several occasions we were led into the polling station through a side entrance rather than the main entrance, perhaps to prevent us from seeing something that was going on inside.
The Islamist parties had by far the largest presence at the polling centers. Virtually every polling center we visited had an “information table” manned by FJP members. While the men at these tables claimed to be there to provide a service for voters, it was clearly a campaigning effort. Colleagues reported seeing campaigning material and mock ballots highlighting their candidates and party. Other campaign banners were simply white fabric with handwritten messages, but the Islamist parties (especially al-Nour and the FJP) had professional-looking, glossy posters in far greater numbers.
Another observation had to do with the party symbols. The FJP symbol is scales, al-Wafd’s symbol is a palm tree, and other party symbols included a mechanical gear, a tank, a flower, a whale. While FJP’s symbol is a clear reference to justice, many of the others are difficult to identify. A tank may carry very different weight in the context of political parties, especially for uninformed or illiterate voters. A colleague reported that one voter told him she had voted for the party with the flower symbol because she thought the symbol was pretty.
According to Egypt’s Law on the Exercise of Political Rights (No. 73 of 1956)—which has been amended several times in 2011—the High Election Commission (HEC) develops the system of symbols. The Law on People’s Assembly (No. 38 of 1972) further specifies that the HEC allocates a symbol to a political party after consultating the party committee. An Egyptian who had been closely following the elections told me that the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral symbol has been scales since the Mubarak era. Many of the other parties were established this year, however, and had no symbol. We should not underestimate the implications of allowing the FJP to use a symbol that universally represents justice among a voting population with an adult literacy rate of about 66 percent (according to UNESCO and UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2005-2008, defining adults as those age fifteen and over). It is plausible to assume that, for at least some voters, the electoral symbols had an impact on their decisions.
The ballots themselves were counted in a large outdoor sports stadium in Luxor, and the streets surrounding the area were heavily guarded by the military and police in riot gear. The scene inside was chaotic. Egypt’s laws provide very little information about how the counting process should unfold; therefore, it is not surprising that the process appeared to be ad hoc. The facilities were clearly insufficient to accommodate the many people involved in the counting process, and perhaps half sat in the middle of the open field on ballot boxes, while others sat at tables inside a makeshift tent. I saw several people using scraps of paper to count but not a single person using an official counting form.
The informal methods of counting the ballots left significant room for error. Many of the counters marked the votes as tick marks grouped in fives; it would have been easy to make a mistake in tallying the votes. In cases in which one person yelled out the vote and someone else recorded it, either party could call out or record incorrectly. More worrisome, anyone recording the votes could deliberately record them wrong. The possibilities for error were endless.
Moreover, a number of NGOs have reported finding thousands of discarded ballots and registration lists since the counting. It is not clear if these ballots were counted and, if there is a recount, these ballots will not be included. In addition, on Friday, Dec. 2, the HEC announced in that the results of the first round could be found online. However, these results were soon removed from the site, and when they were eventually reposted, there were discrepancies between those results and the originals. This brings into question the validity of the reported results.
Conclusions
With the second round of elections set to begin on Wednesday and the third round scheduled for just over three weeks from now, two concerns that are likely to resurface are illegal campaigning and vote-counting fraud. It will be interesting to see if any efforts will be made to stop illegal campaigning, especially in light of extensive reporting of this practice during the first round. The problems that occurred during the vote counting, both logistically and procedurally, have not yet been fully documented. However, the growing evidence of discarded ballots is great cause for concern. Unless the HEC takes steps to strengthen the counting process in the coming rounds, it is easy to believe that these issues will be repeated, quite possibly on a larger scale as the final results draw near.
The mood at the often chaotic polling centers was positive and excited. Most people indicated that they felt these elections were better than any they had previously experienced. Immediately evident was the level of interest and concern Egyptians felt about foreigners’ views on the elections’ success. My impression was that this concern stemmed from both the feeling that we were “experienced” in democracy and thus qualified to give our expert opinions as well as a deep concern that foreigners not think poorly of Egypt. Throughout the two days, voters and journalists at the polling stations asked us about our observations and opinions.
For the most part, voters and polling committee members were very welcoming. In the rural areas, children crowded around us, and adults competed to lead us around the polling centers. At other stations, however, we were treated with great suspicion. One judge told us that he did not like Americans because of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) should leave power. At an especially religious, conservative station in Karnak, where virtually all the men wore jalabiya and many women wore niqab, a large group of men crowded around us and quickly became very confrontational and angry. I would have preferred to leave, but after our Egyptian friend reassured them, they decided to let us enter.
Despite my overall positive experience observing the elections, I did witness a number of questionable activities, not all of which were electoral violations, at the over 30 polling centers I visited on Nov. 28 and 29. The most common were:
1. Polling committee members helping voters mark their ballots. This is allowed for persons with disabilities, but I only saw one instance in which a disabled man—in this case, blind—was assisted by a judge. In all other cases it seemed the voter asked for assistance because he or she was unsure what to do. In some cases the polling committee member actually marked the ballot for the voter, which, while permitted, could be problematic if the voter is illiterate and cannot verify that the ballot was marked according to his or her wish.
2. Lack of sufficient secrecy for voters. The open sides of the voting booths often faced the other people in the room. Many voters did not use the booths at all, instead opting to mark their ballots on a tabletop, on the ballot box, etc.
3. Active campaigning on polling center grounds. It is illegal for parties or candidates to campaign at the polling centers during elections. Nevertheless, people distributed campaign flyers and political party representatives staffed “information tables” to encourage voters to choose their party or candidates just before they entered the station to vote. My group witnessed several voters in polling stations holding campaign materials in their hands as they voted. These tables were outside almost every polling station. While the people at the tables claimed to be there to provide voters with their ID numbers for voting, the tables were clearly a campaign tool to sway voters just before they went inside. Virtually all were manned by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) or al-Nour Party representatives, but they were not always clearly marked, which may have led some voters to believe they were there purely to assist.
4. Late opening or early closing of polling stations. I arrived in Luxor at approximately 8:45 am on Nov. 28—forty-five minutes after the scheduled opening of the centers—but I saw at least one polling center that was still closed as I made my way into the city. Voters crowded around the outside fence, pounding on it or peering inside. At another polling center, the judge told us he would close at 7 pm, a full two hours before the scheduled closing time, but said he had opened the center early to make up for it. Several voters outside the station disputed the judge’s claim.
5. Inconsistency in the use of ink. There was no consistent procedure in place for inking voters. Voters chose which finger they inked, and some inked a large portion of their finger, while others only dipped their fingertips. Illiterate voters also used ink instead of signing the registration list, but the colors of the two inks were so similar that I initially thought a woman with two inky fingers had voted twice.
Other Observations
Additionally, I saw multiple people in the same voting booth, a woman holding money in her hand as she went to vote (a possible sign that her vote was bought), photocopies of ballots outside the polling stations, and a member of al-Nour wearing a reflective yellow vest outside the polling station providing “assistance” to voters (others confirmed seeing the same elsewhere). On several occasions we were led into the polling station through a side entrance rather than the main entrance, perhaps to prevent us from seeing something that was going on inside.
The Islamist parties had by far the largest presence at the polling centers. Virtually every polling center we visited had an “information table” manned by FJP members. While the men at these tables claimed to be there to provide a service for voters, it was clearly a campaigning effort. Colleagues reported seeing campaigning material and mock ballots highlighting their candidates and party. Other campaign banners were simply white fabric with handwritten messages, but the Islamist parties (especially al-Nour and the FJP) had professional-looking, glossy posters in far greater numbers.
Another observation had to do with the party symbols. The FJP symbol is scales, al-Wafd’s symbol is a palm tree, and other party symbols included a mechanical gear, a tank, a flower, a whale. While FJP’s symbol is a clear reference to justice, many of the others are difficult to identify. A tank may carry very different weight in the context of political parties, especially for uninformed or illiterate voters. A colleague reported that one voter told him she had voted for the party with the flower symbol because she thought the symbol was pretty.
According to Egypt’s Law on the Exercise of Political Rights (No. 73 of 1956)—which has been amended several times in 2011—the High Election Commission (HEC) develops the system of symbols. The Law on People’s Assembly (No. 38 of 1972) further specifies that the HEC allocates a symbol to a political party after consultating the party committee. An Egyptian who had been closely following the elections told me that the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral symbol has been scales since the Mubarak era. Many of the other parties were established this year, however, and had no symbol. We should not underestimate the implications of allowing the FJP to use a symbol that universally represents justice among a voting population with an adult literacy rate of about 66 percent (according to UNESCO and UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2005-2008, defining adults as those age fifteen and over). It is plausible to assume that, for at least some voters, the electoral symbols had an impact on their decisions.
The ballots themselves were counted in a large outdoor sports stadium in Luxor, and the streets surrounding the area were heavily guarded by the military and police in riot gear. The scene inside was chaotic. Egypt’s laws provide very little information about how the counting process should unfold; therefore, it is not surprising that the process appeared to be ad hoc. The facilities were clearly insufficient to accommodate the many people involved in the counting process, and perhaps half sat in the middle of the open field on ballot boxes, while others sat at tables inside a makeshift tent. I saw several people using scraps of paper to count but not a single person using an official counting form.
The informal methods of counting the ballots left significant room for error. Many of the counters marked the votes as tick marks grouped in fives; it would have been easy to make a mistake in tallying the votes. In cases in which one person yelled out the vote and someone else recorded it, either party could call out or record incorrectly. More worrisome, anyone recording the votes could deliberately record them wrong. The possibilities for error were endless.
Moreover, a number of NGOs have reported finding thousands of discarded ballots and registration lists since the counting. It is not clear if these ballots were counted and, if there is a recount, these ballots will not be included. In addition, on Friday, Dec. 2, the HEC announced in that the results of the first round could be found online. However, these results were soon removed from the site, and when they were eventually reposted, there were discrepancies between those results and the originals. This brings into question the validity of the reported results.
Conclusions
With the second round of elections set to begin on Wednesday and the third round scheduled for just over three weeks from now, two concerns that are likely to resurface are illegal campaigning and vote-counting fraud. It will be interesting to see if any efforts will be made to stop illegal campaigning, especially in light of extensive reporting of this practice during the first round. The problems that occurred during the vote counting, both logistically and procedurally, have not yet been fully documented. However, the growing evidence of discarded ballots is great cause for concern. Unless the HEC takes steps to strengthen the counting process in the coming rounds, it is easy to believe that these issues will be repeated, quite possibly on a larger scale as the final results draw near.
on this article