By Marwa Al-A’asar
CAIRO: The Supreme Judicial Commission overseeing voting on a public referendum on constitutional amendments has extended polling until all voters inside and waiting outside polling stations have cast their votes, not setting a specific deadline, according to TV reports.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Coalition for Monitoring Elections, made up of 123 civil society organizations and rights groups, said in a statement Saturday morning that some attempts to say voters were observed during a public referendum on constitutional amendments.
“The [representatives] noticed a group of Muslim Brotherhood members calling on voters to cast a yes ballot … in polling stations in…Moqqatam … Imbaba and Agouza neighborhoods in Cairo and in Menufiya governorate,” the statement said.
The coalition further said that a number of polling stations did not open on time in Sixth of October governorate, Nasr City, Imbaba and Agouza.
Other voters complained that the ballots were not stamped.
“I cast my vote at a school in Dokki and I told the head of the polling station that the ballot was not stamped. He said it was not a problem and that the number on the back of the paper was the stamp,” one voter said.
“I did not look like a stamp to me and the number was the same on many papers I saw,” she added.
Other monitors said that the phosphoric ink was not available at some polling stations and that it could be easily removed.
Judicial supervision, according to the coalition, was absent in some polling stations in Qena and Gharbiya governorates.
The monitors further detected some unlocked ballot boxes in Ma’sara, Sixth of October, Zaytoun, Dokki and Maadi.
Lawyer Sayed Ibrahim from the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights was denied entry into three polling stations in Mansoura, the main city in Daqahliya governorate.
Ibrahim later learnt that some people attempted to monitor the voting process, presenting fake permits.
The judicial committee supervising the referendum released a statement in the afternoon saying that some voting cards were not stamped by mistake.
The committee said that in this case, the judge supervising the polling station will put his signature on the back of the ballot before it’s placed in the box.
About two hours later, the committee announced on Twitter that voting cards with no stamp would not be invalidated.
The committee said in another statement that that a military jet carried judges to Nagaa Hamady in Upper Egypt to supervise the referendum “due to circumstances that prevented judges from arriving in their assigned polling stations,” extending the voting hours in the governorate.
In Suez, a youth group formed the Voters’ Rights Movement in a bid to combat the Islamists’ attempt to influence voters.
“We have been touring polling stations all day to detect any Islamists distributing leaflets calling on people to say yes. We seized some men and handed them over to the army,” movement member Abdel-Aziz Kamel said.
“The problem now is that they attempt to [brainwash] the residents of poor neighborhoods and slums…especially uneducated ones,” Kamel said.
