Ankara, July 31 (IANS): The process of voting for the next Turkish president has started for Turkish expatriates, Turkey's Supreme Election Board (YSK) said Thursday.
According to the YSK, the overseas electorate can vote at embassies, consulates and other designated areas in their country of residence between July 31 and Aug 3, Xinhua reported.
Only about 178,959 of the more than 2.7 million eligible voters living abroad have made online registrations to cast their ballots in the first round of the presidential elections, YSK said.
The low turnout was expected, mainly because many Turkish nationals were not informed that they had to register online before their voting, it said.
Voting in the country's first ever popular presidential election is slated for Aug 10 in Turkey.
Incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pitted against Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, former secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party's Selahattin Demirtas.