Opposition Says Irregularities Mar Egyptian Voting
Egyptians voted on a draft constitution Saturday, some waiting for hours to cast their ballots and complaining of poor organization. Mohannad Sabry reports from a Cairo polling station.
CAIRO —The line of voters at Al-Bahheya Al-Burhaneyya polling station in Cairo’s poor district of Sayyeda Zeinab stretched for a few hundred yards outside the school building.
Inside the polling place, the scene was chaotic. Only four judges were overseeing four boxes for the ballots of district residents voting on their country's draft constitution.
Two lines, one for women and another for men, stretched up the stairs to the second floor where several military and police officers desperately tried to absorb the anger of those who had been waiting for hours, but whose turns were automatically given to the elderly, ill, or handicapped. There was no ballot box specialized for them on the ground floor for easy access, a measure applied in every polling station during the presidential and parliamentary elections and the constitutional referendum held by the interim military government in March 2011.
At one point, dozens of voters dashed into the voting room where only one judge and two assistants sat. “That’s it, no voting, we will not work unless you all get out,” yelled the judge, who refused to show his ID or give his name to Al-Monitor.
