Baku TurkicWorld
As of Sunday, 717,612 people have cast their votes abroad in the second round of the Turkish presidential elections, TurkicWorld reports citing Daily Sabah.
According to the Supreme Election Council (YSK), 683,580 votes were cast at foreign representative offices and 34,032 at customs gates.
On Saturday, Turkish nationals living abroad started voting at the country’s foreign missions and customs gates.
Voting overseas will continue until May 24. After that, those who want to vote at the customs gates can cast ballots until May 28 at 5 p.m. According to the Foreign Ministry, 3,461 ballot boxes were set up for the second round.
Over 1.8 million Turkish voters voted abroad in the May 14 elections. In the first round of voting, some 65% of voters in Germany, home to Türkiye’s largest diaspora, backed the incumbent.
The ballots abroad are brought to Türkiye via diplomatic couriers and methods determined by the YSK under maximum security measures to be kept safe in the capital Ankara.
Both President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu called on the Turkish diaspora to go to polling stations and vote for the second round.
“I ask you to exercise your democratic right by closely following the election dates in your countries,” Erdoğan wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Similarly, Kılıçdaroğlu said it is a “national duty” for Turkish citizens living abroad to vote in the country’s May 28 runoff.
