US expat ballots headed to Turkey as referendum nears

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) – Nearly 33,000 expatriate ballots have been sent to Turkey from the U.S. late Monday ahead of this weekend’s referendum on changes to the Turkish constitution.

The ballots were transported from every one of the seven cities where voting took place to Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport.

After arriving in Istanbul, the ballots will go by land to Ankara, the Turkish capital, where they will be counted after voting concludes in Turkey on Sunday.

A total of 32,919 -- or 33 percent -- of over 100,000 ​registered voters in the U.S. cast their ballots in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Boston and Chicago, according to embassy figures.

More than 4,300 ballots were cast in the capital, while more than 12,000 were cast in New York.

More than 2,000 people, who are registered in the U.S., are expected to have voted at Turkish border gates, bringing the total number to 35,000, or roughly 35 percent.

The turnout at the Nov. 1, 2015 general election was 27 percent.

Head of ruling AK Party’s regional electoral office in North America, Levent Ali Yildiz, told Anadolu Agency that he was happy with the increase.

Yildiz said his team worked hard over a 50-day period to connect with voters across 50 U.S. states, urging everyone they came across to go to the ballot box no matter their political affiliations.

Ali Sarikaya, who volunteered for the “No” campaign, said the uneventful campaigning process “shows that we are able to co-exist and work together”.

Approximately 2.9 million Turkish expatriates were eligible to vote on the referendum worldwide. The total number of votes is expected to reach as many as 1.5 million.

The April 16 referendum in Turkey addresses a host of constitutional reforms that would hand wide-ranging executive powers to the president.

The post of prime minister would be abolished and the president would also be allowed to retain ties to a political party.

Other changes include the minimum age of parliamentary candidates reduced to 18 and the number of deputies increased to 600.