Egyptian Electoral reforms referendum: A political success, a procedural disaster

"I did vote once before. In 1981. Believe it or not, it was Mubarak..." says Hajj Youssef. He was happy. He knew what he was doing, too. He had made up his mind and he was well convinced of his choice. I was charmed.


I voted, and stayed around a little longer in a small polling station in Dokki, took a few photos. The station was supervised by a very young prosecutor - wakeel niyaba - who authorized press presence.

In comparison to the voting processes I had the chance to observe with the Carter Center, including the self-determination referendum of South-Sudan, this referendum was a procedural disaster. 4 out of every 5 ballots were not stamped. People did not vote behind curtains; they would even show their signed ballots to the poll station workers. Inking was borderline optional; I could've not inked my finger had I chosen so. Each ballot box was raided by about 4 or 5 people simultaneously.
And I saw a guy be allowed to vote with a laminated photocopy of his national ID..

During counting, observers present were seated at the end of the room - and could not see the ballots being counted, which beats the purpose of their late-night observation since they cannot tell how the ballots were marked.

And that's just in the polling stations I observed. In others, there were ones where judges were not there for several hours. Reports of thugs attacking people (most famously Mohamed Elbaradei) were not uncommon.

And in one station in Bab-el-Khalk (Cairo), lawyer activist Ragia Omran, who was accredited to observe the referendum, was asked by the army to leave the polling station - and she got into an argument with an army officer who simply decided to arrest her and her sister. They were released after midnight.

Despite everything, people were happy. So many had turned out, for their very first electoral experience! Everyone engaged in conversations about the referendum - all the way into the queue at the polling station.
As I walked out after voting, a man from the building across asks whether I had voted, and what. I tell him I voted no. "Good man!", he says. "You know, around here, we all voted no - we won't be fooled easily, ha!"

Abdo Abdel Shafy, an elderly buffet worker in a company, tells me it's his first time to vote - "It's the first time I've felt I had a voice! I voted yes, because I want stability, But if the next president doesn't do what we ask of him, well, Tahrir square is right down the road from here!", he warns, laughingly.

My absolute highlight of the day were Tamer and Sameh - two deaf-and-mute young men whom I chatted with. They were very patient with my ignorance of sign language, and explained to me they were very happy to vote (they voted yes), and that the station they voted at was very crowded - but an officer, seeing they were disabled, took them to the front of the line.

Whether the result is yes or no, there will little condemnation of the results. I expect no serious challenge of whatever announcement is made - partly because the vote isn't very significant, but also because we have no standards to compare the management of the vote with.

But I keep positive. This referendum is a bit of our first experiment with democracy - I'm glad it was a simply yes/no referendum. We'll keep the more complex votes for later.

It can only get better from here.