I went around Chui Province today with some of the staff of Interbilim, a local civil society NGO, checking out the observations of electoral stations by trained volunteers. It was interesting to compare the Kyrgyz electoral process with that of the United States:

Kyrgyzstan: Paper ballots placed in a locked glass box at the center of the room. No shenanigans.
USA: See Black Box Voting

Kyrgyzstan: Inking of electors’ thumbs, like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
USA: No inking.

Kyrgyzstan: Nonpartisan observers throughout country plus partisan observers at occasional stations.
USA: Bellyaching over a small OSCE mission.

Having gotten a few gripes with the American electoral process off my chest, it was interesting to see the various quirks of another country’s electoral process. First, you could hear the polling stations from far off - music blared from boom boxes (apparently, this is a typically Kyrgyz gesture). Although I winced at “Livin’ la Vida Loca” playing at one place, the music made the often quiet polling stations a little more lively. Second, the quietness of the polling stations was worrying - even though we had visited halfway through the day, less than 20% of people had voted (we’ll see if more people come in the evening, as some I spoke with predicted). Third, it seemed that voters were not well educated on the candidates and their platforms, despite large posters in many areas in towns with all of their statements. People voted for Bakiev just for the sake of voting for him, rather than any specific policies or ideological alignment. I’m going to look into this further in the days ahead. Fourth was the interesting occurance of ‘drunk voting’ in a village (I’ll say no more on the record). Combined with the absence of local (by this I mean town-scale, not Kyrgyz) organizations such as buses to voting stations or targeted GOTV campaigns, it seems that the massive PR campaign to get people to vote at least partly succeeded - everyone who would vote probably did vote. However, the critical other piece of the voting equation - that people vote based on their political preferences - may not yet be prevalent in Kyrgyzstan. The processes at each place seemed clean enough - everyone was very professional and well-trained. Hopefully, it will turn out as some think, whereby the experience of a good election will be the taste of real democracy that will begin the process of political transformation.