Civil initiative organizations, including Sandık Başındayız (We Are At The Polls) and Oy ve Ötesi (Vote and Beyond) have trained 22,000 people so far to help monitor the elections and make sure no wrongdoing occurs.
Sandık Başındayız spokesman Cenap Bıyıklı said democracy in Turkey is shaped by voting and that his organization aims to contribute to this process.
“We got together by organizing via social media after the Gezi Park protests last summer, and we have been working under Sandık Başındayız since September 2013. During every election in Turkey, there are rumors of ballots being stolen, so we came up with this movement. We have read the election laws and are looking for ways to monitor the elections,” Bıyıklı said.
“We are a band of citizens who have come together. There is another group called Oy ve Ötesi, and they were formed the same way we were. We have merged our volunteers [to monitor the elections] and now have 22,000 volunteers. There are 33,000 voting stations in İstanbul, so we need more volunteers,” Bıyıklı said.
He added that the main objective of Sandık Başındayız is to inform voters and to encourage them to volunteer to monitor the elections.
“In the last local elections, 21 percent of the population didn't contribute to the elections. We want to raise awareness regarding the importance of voting in Turkey. ... We will not be volunteering for any political party; we just want the elections to run in a transparent way, with no [possibility of] fraud. The law allows us to be at the voting stations during the elections,” Bıyıklı said.
More information about the organization can be found at sandikbasindayz.org, and it welcoming volunteers.
Source/Fuentes: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-342995-social-media-group-volunteers-to-...
