Ministry in novel phone poll
By tonight, Interior Ministry officials will have telephoned an estimated 100,000 misplaced Athenian voters to tell them where they should cast the ballot during Sunday’s local elections, the government said yesterday. This was dictated by a change in the electoral roll system, which is now based on – often inaccurate – municipal registers. Interior Minister Costas Skandalidis said some 42,000 Athenians had been informed through the mail by yesterday afternoon where they are to vote, while another 100,000 will be phoned by tonight. All the above had their addresses incorrectly listed, and as a result will have to vote far from where they did under the old, parish-based system. He said the ministry had consulted tax authorities’ databases and the telephone directory to locate the misplaced voters, and renewed criticism of Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos, whom Skandalidis has blamed for the confusion. «Due to our concern, we exceeded our brief and decided to find Mr Avramopoulos’s voters ourselves and tell them where to vote,» he said.
