Elections

On Sunday, the semi-autonomous region in which I live, Gagauzia, held elections for their “bashkahn.” Besides having a cool title, I’m not exactly certain what a bashkahn does, but I imagine it’s akin to being the governor of a really small state within a really small country. Anyway, it was a pretty big deal here. Two weeks ago were the primaries with 5 candidates. The field was narrowed to two, both being mayors of the largest cities in Gagauzia.

In my village we had three polling stations – one at each of the two schools and another at the house of culture. All the streets are divided among those three places and each person goes to “their” polling station. They must show some form of ID, and then they’re given a ballot, enter one of three booths, stamp the ballot for the candidate they want, get the ballot stamped by one of the poll workers, and then deposit the ballot in a big box. Although I’m no official election observer – though we did have two such folks stop by during the day – the elections in my village seemed fair and orderly. They were also open enough that it was easy to see what was happening.

That, too, goes for the counting of the ballots I saw at the end of the night (polls were open from 7am to 9pm). All the ballots were put on the table, and sorted into three piles: candidate 1, candidate 2, and “hanging chads.” After being counted and recounted several times, the ballots were wrapped in their groups in thick brown paper, sealed with tape, and placed in boxes which were brought to the regional center. There, the ballots from across the region were tallied and the higher-ups decided what to do with the ones where, for example, voters stamped in between the spots for the candidates.

All in all, it was a good experience to watch. Other that the way in which votes were tallied – by hand instead of with machines – I’d say the elections here were pretty similar to those in America.