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Article 20
 

Duties and Powers of the Overseas District Election Council
(2nd Article of Law 6304, amended on 18 May 2012)


The duties and powers of the Overseas District Election Council are as follows:


1. To ensure that election transactions and procedures for voting of the citizens registered in the overseas election registry are executed in an orderly manner and to take all necessary measures;


2. To form overseas balloting committees;


3. To send ballots, ballot envelopes stamped with the cachet of the Ministry of Affairs on their back, and other election items and equipment by means of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a manner rendering them ready at the concerned foreign mission at the latest seven days prior to the date the voting procedures will begin, or when deemed necessary, to request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to supply the necessary equipment such as ballot boxes, ballot booths at the locality;


4. To review and resolve objections and complaints against resolutions of overseas balloting committees;


5. To immediately respond to questions to be asked by the heads of overseas balloting committees on election transactions and procedures;


6. To conclude objections filed directly or through consulates against the overseas electoral registry during the period from their announcement to the end of the period of objections, to submit decisions to be made to the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs, and to make them perform the necessary registration and correction procedures according to these decisions;


7. To approve address declaration forms that have been sent directly or through district election boards of voters who have their residential addresses overseas, although they are temporarily in Turkey due to any reason during the period from the announcement of the overseas electoral registries to the end of their objection period, and to forward them to the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs;


8. To accept the applications filed directly or via district election boards by individuals that have been discharged, are not registered in the overseas electoral registry, and whose status of restriction has ended; and to ensure their registration in the overseas electoral registry;


9. To make decisions on freezing the overseas electoral registry record of recruited privates, non-commissioned officers, conscripts, and military students (even if they are on leave) and voters whose rights were restricted with a finalized court judgment, who are all registered in the overseas electoral registry;


10. To decide on the addition of voters to the registry, whose names are not in the finalized overseas electoral registry even though a decision has been made to register the application filed to the overseas electoral registry within the period from their announcement to the end of the objection period, regardless of the finalization of the overseas electoral registry, and to forward it to the General Directorate of Electoral Registry;


11. To have sealed ballot bags coming from overseas opened under its supervision after the voting period has finished in Turkey in a manner complying with general principles by establishing an adequate number of balloting committees consisting of a chairman, a public official member, and one actual and one reserve member notified by each of the three political parties receiving the most votes in the most recent parliamentary election in Turkey, and to count and tally them, to have reports issued and perform combination procedures, to combine results additionally incoming from temporary election boards of customs gates and to forward them to the Ankara Provincial Election Council; and


12. To perform other duties assigned by laws.