The report also mentions that most ballot papers were not carrying the official stamp, as required by the Electoral Commission, and that a number of supervisors refused to show their identity cards, a must according to the instructions issued by the Elections Commission.
Irregularities were not reported only in Cairo.
In a polling station in Alexandria, a judge corrupted the ballot paper of a woman who had voted “no” while in polling station no.89 voting was carried out without the required presence of a judge.
The monitoring report refers also to three members of the Muslim Brotherhood who had occupied, since yesterday, a polling station. They had on them 3000 ballot papers.
The Operations Room of the National Salvation Front reports also on the way the bodyguards of the Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat el-Shater prevented the voters from entering the polling station in Nasr City until El-Shater has casted his vote.
Complaints filed by the lawyers of the National Salvation Front include all the irregularities of the voting process, the absence of judges at polling stations, the unstamped ballot papers and also directing the voters to support the new constitution.
Brotherhood organizers direct voters inside polling stations
The operation room of the National Salvation Front (NSF) has reported that its delegates deployed to Egypt’s governorates spotted several irregularities during the vote on the draft constitution.
Most notable is that observers and organizers belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood in Sohag and Arab Maadi are directing voters in the polling stations to vote “yes” in the constitutional referendum.
The operation room reported that a ballot box full of voting papers in a station located in Tariq Ibn Ziyad School in Shubra, Cairo, was spotted early in the morning, raising suspicions.
In some areas, polling stations did not open before 9 a.m. Some voting stations have been reported to have unsealed papers.
In one instance, a female voter, Omnia Khalid Osman, was held for wanting to verify a judges identity.
Due to the absence of some judges, the administrative staff of the Public Prosecution is overseeing the electoral process in Alexandria.
The operation room also highlighted the insufficient number of employees, stressing that all organizers inside polling stations belong to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Islamists threaten Copts in Assiut
A number of Coptic residents of Assiut said they received mobile messages of threats aiming to prevent them from participating in today’s referendum. The messages said, “Those who fear for their lives should not participate.”
The threats were sent in cities with Coptic majorities, including Dairout, Manflout, and el-Koseya. Many cars passed through the cities of the governorate calling on Muslims to vote for the draft constitution to support Islam.
Supervising commissions monitored the weak turnout of Christians in areas that enjoy a Christian majority, such as Shubra and Ezbet el-Nakhl in Cairo, Assiut and some areas of Sohag.
Member of Maspiro Youth Union Andrawes Oweida said that Islamists turned to bullying to pass their constitution that the people refuse, adding that they turned the referendum to a sectarian process to rally the ordinary people on a religious basis.
He underlined the threats that the Christians received on Saturday to prevent them from voting in the referendum. He added that this has happened before, when Copts were threatened to not participate in the Presidential election.
Another Maspiro Youth Union member, Ermia William, submitted a complaint against a judge who refused to seal the ballot papers, adding that he asked the judge to seal the papers, but the judge refused and asked him to attend the counting process. He stressed that such behavior raises skepticism over the integrity of the referendum.
In the same context, a number of women organized a demonstration outside a poll station in Nasr City when they discovered that a teacher, not a judge, was supervising the voting process there. The women chanted “illegal illegal”. The incident repeated in Shubra, where a Coptic lawyer found a colleague impersonating a judge to supervise the referendum in a poll station.
A leaflet threatens the Copts in Sohag, Upper Egypt.
A leaflet threatening the Copts has been widely distributed in Upper Egypt governorate of Sohag.
It threatens the Christian citizens against participating in the current referendum but goes as far as warning the Copts not to stand against the implementation of the Islamic law, and if the Copts do so they would face days “worse than the days you witnessed throughout the era of the Roman Empire” it says.
The leaflet, titled “No aggression except against the oppressors”, said, “To the Crusaders, the sons of Tawadros, you launched the war against Islam, you rallied the people to prevent implementing the Islamic law, you went against Article II of the Constitution so our attacks would target your churches, monasteries, and pastors”
It added that they would attack the Christians, if they insulted the divine self, the prophet’s companions and Islamic sanctities, adding that they would consider the Christians who would defend Christianity as accomplice in the crimes.
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