No national election day is without its goof ups, slip ups and “snafus”, and Jan. 25 is no exception:
* Polling stations in mountainous Nafpaktia, in west-central Greece, opened after 11.15 a.m. (09.15 GMT) on Sunday. The area was inaccessible due to snow on the roads.
* The absence of a large number of “conscripted” election committee members was evident. These committees are made up of members of the public who are called to serve their country on election day, akin to jury duty. This year, a great many preferred to pay the fine rather than show up. At the 20th primary school of Aroi in Patras, the western Peloponnese port city, there was not even one voting committee member present, leaving the attending attorney and secretary — both paid for the occasion — to organize the ballots themselves. Other polling precincts reported similar problems. When former conservative prime minister Costas Karamanlis showed up to vote at the Agios Eleftherios precinct in Thessaloniki at 7.50 a.m. he found just one member of the voting committee and the judicial representative, instead of the eight “conscripted volunteers” who were supposed to be present. Supposedly, many of the absent members support of psychologists and doctors to prove that they couldn’t possibly make it!
* Greece’s conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras showed up to vote without his ID.
* Main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras was surrounded by crowds and at some point, somebody trying to lead Mr. Tsipras into the voting center said: “Κάντε πίσω (Move back)… Everybody” The opposition leader also surprised everyone by making an English statement for the foreign members of the press.
* The Municipality of Patras delivered wet ballots to a number of voting centers and a rush began to find dry ones.
* At Agia Roumeli at the municipality of Chania on Crete a super puma arrived with the judicial representative after a 45-minute delay.
* At Kallipoli, Piraeus, a citizen got into a brawl with an ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn representative and punching ensued. Police were called in.
* The electoral catalogues at Nikaia, Piraeus had not been updated and most of the people on the register are dead.
