Will the OSCE report of manipulation of the vote count in the Turkish presidential election?
11
157
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resolved Jan 20
Resolved
NO

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's press release on the 2018 Azerbaijan election would qualify:

On election day the observers reported widespread disregard for mandatory procedures, a lack of transparency, and numerous serious irregularities, including ballot box stuffing. More than half of the vote counts were assessed negatively, largely due to deliberate falsifications and an obvious disregard for procedures.

However, the OSCE's report on Turkey's 2017 constitutional referendum would not qualify, as it doesn't directly claim that manipulation of the vote count took place.

The OSCE will be observing: ODIHR opens election observation mission to Türkiye

Resolves according to their first report in which they comfortably make conclusions about the election. It doesn't count if their first report just describes their investigations, or if they explicitly say that a clear conclusion on this matter will be given in a future report.

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@finn Can this resolve?

predicted NO

@SirCryptomind Thanks for the reminder. Resolving this negatively, as the final report does not directly claim that manipulation of the vote count took place. For the first round, they said:

Election day was generally well-organized and assessed positively by IEOM observers, however, instances of deficient implementation of certain procedures, particularly during voting and counting were noted.

and for the runoff:

Election day was generally calm and well-administered. However, instances of deficient implementation of certain procedures, particularly during the vote count, were noted.

Here are the issues they found with the counting procedure in the first and second rounds (BBC=ballot box committee):

First round

Second round

This falls short of the criteria, which requires reports of directly manipulating with the vote count (e.g. ballot-box stuffing).

The closest it gets is this footnote, where they say that some news outlets reported ballot-box stuffinf:

According to reports from the media and allegations from social networks, in the Akçakale district in Şanlıurfa, lawyers were physically attacked when trying to enter a polling station where allegedly ballot-box stuffing had occurred

but the OSCE does not corroborate this accusation.

bought Ṁ500 of NO

So the OSCE published their preliminary report (which can be found among other resources here).

I've not read the full document, but their preliminary conclusions don't say there was manipulation of the vote count, and I also used ctrl-F a healthy amount (e.g. for: 'vote', 'count', 'manipulat') and didn't find anything.

I said this in the resolution criteria:

Resolves according to their first report in which they comfortably make conclusions about the election. It doesn't count if their first report just describes their investigations, or if they explicitly say that a clear conclusion on this matter will be given in a future report.

They comfortably make conclusions here, and I couldn't find any instance of them saying they would provide a clear conclusion on vote manipulation in a future report. They do say:

The final assessment of the elections will depend, in part, on the conduct of the remaining stages of the electoral process, including the count, tabulation and announcement of results, and the handling of possible post-election day complaints or appeals. ODIHR will issue a comprehensive final report, including recommendations for potential improvements, some eight weeks after the completion of the electoral process.

Would people be okay with me resolving this negatively now? I said it'll resolve "according to their first report in which they comfortably make conclusions about the election", but people may have expected this to apply only after the two rounds had completed — what do you think?

predicted YES

@finnhambly I mean, technically, the presidential election is not yet complete, so it should be impossible for them to actually state any definitive conclusions about votes that have not yet been cast

predicted NO

@cloudprism yeah, agreed. I'll leave it open until their first report after the second round.

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