Almaty election commission expects at least 24 percent turnover at elections

Head of Almaty territorial election commission Bakhytzhan Dospanov told about preparedness for the elections of January 15, 2012, Tengrinews.kz reports. According to Dospanov, there are around 960 thousand residents with voting rights in Almaty. 472 polling stations will operate on the elections day in the city. In case some people are unable to vote for some reasons, representatives of the election commission will come to their homes. “The observers can take part in such initiatives as well, so that there are no speculations about fraudulence, often used by those who lose an election,” head of the election commission said. Answering the question on expected turnout, Dospanov said: “In 2007, when the last Majilis elections were held, the turnout made 23-24 percent. I don’t think that this time it will be any less.” Around one million invitations were sent out to notify each voter. This practice was first used at the presidential elections in 2011. At the same time Dospanov said that several insignificant violations were registered during the campaign period. The violations were mainly related to placement of campaign materials at advertisement boards, when some parties placed their posters in places set aside for other parties. There were also cases when the posters with images of candidates were torn off and replaced with images of other candidates.