Despite a third verdict last night to halt elections in Assiut's second electoral district due to candidates' complaints, voting still proceeded normally in polling stations there.
Tuesday's turnout in Assiut was very low, with only a handful of voters in schools. Hundreds of voters waited in queues at the same time Monday.
Ahmed Khansour, an independent activist monitoring the elections in Assiut with an elections committee permit, said he plans to file a suit with the public prosecution over two violations he and other monitors saw last night.
First, election monitors found empty ballots outside polling stations, Khansour said. The monitors interpreted this as proof that candidates sent voters into the polling station with already filled-in ballots, then asked voters to bring back their empty ballots for awards.
Second, Khansour said election monitors saw campaigning inside the polling station, mainly by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. The monitors said there was verbal and visual campaigning inside the schools and near the doors of rooms where votes were cast.
However, the monitors said ballots were well-secured by military police by Monday night.
On Tuesday, a woman in Assiut showed supporters where to vote on the ballot.
"Look at our symbol on the ballot — it's supposed to be an apple but it looks like a tomato. I am literate and I was confused when I went to vote, how are the illiterate who support us going be able to figure it out on their own?" she said.
Another woman said, "We're not doing anything wrong, we're outside the polling stations and we're not forcing anything on anyone. We're just showing them how to vote and they go in and make their own choices."
But Khansour said, "When you tell voters who to vote for on the door of the polling station, this is not guiding them, this is dictating their choice. This is a crime."
Violations are much more obvious in villages than in cities, because campaigns there are often run by close friends or family members.
In the village of Dronka, the hometown of Mohamed Abdel Mohsen — the former National Democratic Party secretary general in Assiut, who's running for an individual seat — security is considerably tighter. Military 4x4s roam the streets and officers are periodically visiting polling stations.
Residents say the security build-up is from fear of possible clashes between Abdel Mohsen supporters and those who turned against him after the 25 January revolution.
But the turnout in Dronka is higher than other villages, and fewer campaigning violations could be seen, with only a few people handing out flyers.
