Election process unfolding smoothly, Supreme Court President Peppas says

The election process is unfolding smoothly, despite being unprecedented and with double the number of polling stations and judicial representatives, Supreme Court President Vasilios Peppas said to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on Sunday.

"In spite of this, all the services responsible cooperated and the Supreme Court did its best to ensure that there would be judicial representatives at each polling station. Already, since early yesterday night....we were informed that all [positions for] judicial representatives had been filled," he said, noting that any replacements that had to be made due to illness or other problems were arranged in good time, so that everything was ready when voting started on Sunday.

Asked whether the election process was facilitated by the fact that many polling stations, especially in urban areas, had two secretaries assisting the judicial representative, Peppas agreed: "It helped a great deal since, as is well known and as our experience has shown in the past, the members of election committees don't present themselves on election day. Usually one or two turn up, in exceptional cases a few more."

Consequently, he added, the presence of the two secretaries to a great extent made up for the lack of the committee members.

"When someone does not want to offer his or her services, regardless of whether you force them, they are not efficient. Therefore those that stay and do this work, which is responsible, deserve congratulations," he said, wishing them patience during the difficult work of selection and counting that will follow during the night.