The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denied reports claiming that various incidents of fraud and vote rigging have occurred as Egyptians abroad cast their votes in the presidential election.
Ministry spokesperson Amr Roshdy said in a statement that the election process is proceeding normally at Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad, and that members of the Egyptian missions are doing their best to guarantee that the vote is clear and transparent.
He added that some minor irregular incidents in the vote have happened, adding that these were simply individual mistakes.
Expatriates who have registered to vote are a minority among the 8 million Egyptians who live abroad, mostly in Europe, North America and Gulf Arab states. Around 500,000 expatriates in 166 countries have registered.
Roshdy said mistakes could happen when a voter’s name is signed in at a place allocated for another voter. But he said that these incidents don’t represent vote rigging.
Reports about the few cases of voting irregularities would be filed and submitted to the Presidential Elections Commission, he added.
The Egyptian Embassy in Washington has said it detected three forgery attempts by Egyptians living in the US.
The embassy said violations occurred when the citizens came to vote at the embassy despite also sending in their votes through the mail. It added that the ballots in violation had been handled according to instructions by the Presidential Elections Commission.
Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian ambassador to Washington, was quoted by state-run news agency MENA on Tuesday as saying that on Monday, the fourth day of Egyptian expatriate voting worldwide, there was a remarkable turnout in the US.
Shoukry said the Washington embassy, as well as Egyptian consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago, received on Monday large numbers of ballots which, he said, are currently being counted.
The first three days of the vote had seen a low turnout due to weekend vacations.
Egyptian voters registered in Washington make up 6,267 out of a total 29,000 registered Egyptians living in the United States. The total is 7,000 more than those registered for the parliamentary elections that ended earlier this year.
