Polling stations officially closed at 11:00 pm, but social media outlets and users as well as eyewitnesses said that some polling stations are still waiting on some voters to cast their ballots in the referendum on the constitution draft held in 10 governorates on Saturday. Egypt Independent follows the counting process as it emerges.
5:00 am: Initial results reported by various outlets, including Muslim Brotherhood sources, show Cairo’s initial results as rejecting the constitution draft, with 57 percent saying “no” and 43 percent saying “yes.”
4:00 am: Final results continue to pour in. Upper Egypt’s Sohag, home to 2,393,672 voters, endorsed the constitution overwhelmingly with 469,493 saying “yes” while 126,836 voted “no.”
Similarly, in the Delta governorate of Sharqiya, home to 3,565,351 voters, 736,929 voted “yes” and 380,502 voted “no.”
The coastal city of Alexandria voted yes to the constitution, with 665,985 of its 3,347,377 voters saying “yes” and 531,221 voters saying “no.”
The upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, home to 2,127,688 voters, endorsed the constitution with 449,431 voters saying “yes” while 141,244 said “no.”
3:45 am: Counting in most of Alexandria has shown a change in its previously noted “no” votes trend, with 655,000 voters choosing “yes” so far, as opposed to 531,000 voting no. These results reflect about 90 percent of the polling stations.
Meanwhile, in Cairo, the “no” votes continue to advance, with 265,082 voting “no” and 124,248 voting “yes” out of the 157 polling stations where the vote was counted.
3:30 am: Initial results from all polling stations in some governorates are already out. The Delta governorate of Gharbiya, a stronghold of 2,948,656 voters, emerges as the first place to reject the constitution draft nationwide, with 508,550 voters choosing “no” as opposed to 467,600 voting “yes”.
North Sinai, meanwhile, emerges as the first place to say “yes” to the constitution draft, with 65,053 voting “yes” and 14,111 voting “no.” The governorate is home to 215,618 voters.
Its neighboring South Sinai, which has 65,407 voters, has endorsed the constitution with 11,697 saying “yes” while 6,743 said “no.”
Daqahlia, which has the second biggest share of voters in the first phase of the referendum after Cairo with some 3,719,578 voters, also endorsed the constitution with 647,489 “yes” voters and 523,713 “no” voters.
Aswan, which has 872,470 votes, overwhelmingly endorsed the constitution with 90,767 “yes” votes and 31,256 “no” votes.
3:00 am: In the predominantly Christian district of Shubra in Cairo, four polling stations’ results show 5,890 “yes” voters and 10,143 “no” voters. These results are consistent with other Cairo results, where “no” voters outnumbered “yes” voters. The final results of the East Cairo Heliopolis district show 16,534 “yes” voters and 55,559 “no” voters.
2:30 am: The “yes” vote continues to lead in governorates with small voter numbers. In South Sinai, of seven polling stations where the counting has concluded, 5,800 voted “yes” and 2,804 voted “no.” In Aswan, the main district’s vote counting shows 8,629 “yes” voters and 1,776 “no” voters. Both governorates have about 1 million voters.
2:00 am: In Alexandria, home to 3,347,377 voters and to opposition leader and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi’s victory in the first round of the presidential elections, 42,682 voted “yes” and 83,214 voted “no” in the Muharam Beh district, with a difference of 40,532 votes, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. Similarly, in the Attareen district, 8,096 voted “yes” and 13,239 voted “no”.
1:30 am: In the upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, home to 2,127,688 voters, vote counting concluded in four districts, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. Results show 25,819 “yes” voters and 3,244 “no” voters. Similarly, there were more “yes” voters in Aswan’s initial counting, where results from the city of Aswan (the main district) show 8,639 “yes” voters as opposed to 1,776 “no” voters.
In the Delta, a similar advancement of the “yes” votes is shown in initial results, albeit with smaller differences between the “yes” and “no” votes. In Sharqiya, vote counting in a main polling station showed 52,000 “yes” voters as opposed to 19,000 “no” voters. In Daqahlia, home to 3,719,578 voters, 34,493 in some polling stations voted “yes” while 21,160 voted “no.” In Gharbiya, 295,000 of the 2,948,656 voters went for a “yes” vote while 208,000 voted “no.”
1:00 am: As results are unfolding in Cairo, home to 6,580,470 voters, who make up 25 percent of the first phase voters, the balance is tipping toward the “no” vote, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.
In the working class districts of Sayeda Zeinab, Bab al-Shaariya, Bassatine and Dar al-Salam, 4,040 voted “yes” and 8,839 voted “no.”
In the more affluent New Cairo and Heliopolis districts, there were 4,751 “yes” votes counted versus 8,946 “no” votes.
12:30 am: Preliminary results after counting around 2 million votes out of 26 million show that voters in the Upper Egyptian governorates of Assiut, Sohag and Aswan opted for a “yes” vote, while the balance tipped toward a “no” vote in the coastal city of Alexandria. In Cairo and the Delta governorate of Gharbiya, results are mixed. According to the pro-President Mohamed Morsy news agency Rassd, 1,175,648 voters said “yes” (64.4 percent) and 648.,203 voters said “no” (35.5 percent) so far. The figures show an increase in the agency’s count of the “no” vote since an earlier count at 11:00 pm showed a 70.7 percent “yes” vote and only 29.3 percent “no.”
12:00 am: Vote counting has concluded in several polling stations in all 10 governorates where the first phase of the referendum took place, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. Initial counting in many of the 10 governorates shows mores “yes” votes than “no” votes.
In Upper Egypt’s Aswan, home to 872,470 voters, the counting in five polling stations reveals 2,726 “yes” votes and 1,969 “no.”
In North Sinai, home to 218,618 voters, the results seven polling stations were announced by the supervising judge, whereby 3,950 voted “yes” and 303 voted “no.”
In the Delta governorate of Sharqiya, home to 3,565,351 voters, results were announced in 17 polling stations, with 14,499 voting “yes” and 6,926 voting “no.”
The state-run Al-Ahram said that the counting in 92 polling stations in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag, home to 2,393,672 voters, shows an 86.5 percent “yes” votes and 13.5 percent “no” votes.
11:00 pm:A fierce debate is taking place right now concerning the legality of closing the polling station before the time set by the high elections commission.
The Freedom and Justice Party’s Facebook page started at around 8:30 pm to publish the results of some polling stations in Sharqiya, Assiut, Sohag and Aswan. By 9:00 pm, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Twitter account said that preliminary results and exit polls showed a majority voted “yes” on the constitution. Figures published by the FJP’s Facebook page show polling stations from Upper Egyptian governorates in Assiut, Sohag and Aswan are overwhelmingly voting “yes.” Other polling stations in the Delta are reported to have more “no” votes.
Rassd said that at 11:00 pm, around 203,000 voted “yes” (70.7 percent), while around 84,000 voted “no” (29.3 percent), after counting 335 polling stations out of 6,367 polling stations in 10 governorates.
Some activists said that these posted results cast doubt over the legality of the procedures.
Zaghloul al-Balshy, the secretary general of the high elections commission, said that the commission would decide later on this issue.
The privately-owned Al-Hayat satellite channel said that some judges closed their polling stations earlier because they objected to the decision of the commission to extend the vote until 11 pm.
Preliminary results are not necessarily indicative of the final results. Smaller polling stations, usually in rural areas, tend to report their results earlier than urban polling stations.
