Election Day Diary - May the Voting Begin!

continued from "Election Day Diary - Intro"...

The voting started at 8:45 a.m.

They were late because of something about the phosphoric ink and the committee's Registered Voters List not being received on time.

When the voting started, a few of the NDP gang that was there started to go and vote. The rest had a copy of the committee's Registered Voters List and were helping out other voters find their names. Which is kinda odd. How come the NDP gang had the List before the committee??!

Anyway.. This is how the voting worked:

To prevent causing a bottleneck INSIDE the committee, the voters were asked to search for their names in the Voters List that was OUTSIDE. The List didn't seem to me to be in any sort of alphabetical order 'cause I saw a Mohammed something then a Mohsen something then another Mohammed something. Maybe sorted against the first letter only. Anyway. Those who find their names would copy down their number and then go inside. Inside the committee, one of the committee members would scan the list to go directly to that number (I'm assuming it was sorted against the number) and make sure the name paired with the number was the same name on the voter's Personal ID card.

For those who didn't have their names in the Registered Voter's List of that committee:

By law, those who were in a committee in which they were not registered (i.e. their names were not in the Registered Voters List for that committee... or simply were supposed to be registered to that committee but for some reason were not added to it) could vote in it, provided they had their pink voting card. In cases like these, the voter would not need to look up his name in the Voter's List (because it would simply not be in it) and could directly go into the committee, show his pink voting card and the member of the committee would jot down his name and voting number (which was in the voting card) in a list of "outside voters" (i.e. voters not registered with that committee).

Many voters wanted to vote as 'outsiders'. I.e. they didn't find their names in the committee's Voters List but they had their pink voting card. However, I observed that many of these were turned away. When the voter would argue with the committee member that by law since he had a voting card he could vote as an 'outsider', the member would reply:

"We have instructions that we are to treat voters as 'outsiders' only if they live outside the Governate of Cairo"

Now how about that! At first I thought maybe it was to ensure that voters wouldn't vote as 'outsider' in several committees. But then that would mean you could have a guy from Aswan, vote as 'outsider' in several committees in Cairo because, since he lived in Aswan, he would be treated as a 'outsider' in ANY committee in Cairo. And wasn't the irremovable phosphoric ink the REAL guarantee to prevent multi-voting? What logic could possibly lie behing such an "instruction"? I cannot understand.

By 11:30 a.m. the place was starting to look like those lines of Tsunami sufferers at the Red Cross distribution points. There were like 60 men and women all crowded together. About 30 attempted to line themselves up to wait their turn to go in the committee while the rest were either just sitting there waiting for their friends or looking up their names in the Lists.

I'd understand if they were distributing bread along with ballot cards. Only then I'd expect these numbers. Call me a disbeliever: but this just looks too suspicious.

"Where are you coming from?"
-"Ezzbet el Arab"
"Did all of you come together?"
-"Yeah"
"How did you come?"
-"Buses"

I note that down. Masses come together from Ezzbet el Arab by buses. The guy who was supposed to be monioting outside said he got the numbers of several mini-buses that were constantly unloading passengers. He said the same bus would come again in a while. Things seem to have been neatly planned by the NDP.

"I am from a neutral organization.
I will ask you a neutral question.
You are free to refuse to answer if you feel that I am not being neutral."
-"Sure" (with a fat smile. Smartass thinks he knows what I'm going to ask)
"Why are you voting?" (and before I finish the sentence...)
-"For the president of course! Who else will I vote for?! We love the president! We are all here with the president"
"No I don't want to know who I want to know why"
Another guy in the line overhears us...
-"Yes! Hahaha! Yes! We want to know WHY! Why don't you tell us WHY?" (His smile is from ear to ear.. he had a look like he was cornering him and had pleasure seeing him try to wriggle out)
-"Hahaha.. I am here for the president! Because he is a great man. He did so much for us." (He to had a smile from ear to ear)
"Really?!" (I couldn't help laughing)
-"Yes ofcourse! Hahaha!"
"Yeah but you didn't tell me WHY you are here to vote?"
(The other guy... laughing)
-"Yeah why don't you tell him WHY?!"
-"Hahaha! Without Why's!"
"I am from a neutral organization and I won't take your name. If you choose not to answer you are free!"
-"Ok then we'll leave it at that!"

Hehehe... the other guy was having the time of his life!

Don't let the beard fool you. This is a die-hard NDP voter.

I then start to wonder whether ANY of these masses are going to vote for anyone other than Hosni. They were all poor. They seemed to know each other somehow. At least they seemed to know that the NDP guys were waiting for them. I actually heard one of the NDP guys shouting out to a colleague of his "Hey... You take this group" while pointing at a group of newcomers. They all looked the same. The dark skin, the poor 'galabeyya', the big smiles. They had this excited gleam in their eyes. Like they were about to embark on some great new experience for the first time of their lives. They gave me shy silly smiles like they didn't really know what they were doing here. All of them were from Ezzbet El-Arab.

To be continued......