First photos of the day: ballot boxes

Here are my first photos of the day, perhaps the first photos of Egypt's 2010 Parliamentary Elections.

Gameela Ismail and I stopped at Salem School in Bulaq at 2:30am. Salem School is the polling station which was mysteriously discovered to have been added to the Qasr el-Nil district yesterday, despite being physically located in Bulaq district rather than Qasr el-Nil.

Outside the school, Gameela's banners and posters were the only ones from Qasr el-Nil which appeared. The other banners were all from Bulaq candidates.

Seventeen voting boxes are supposed to be located at the school. Here you can see the covered ballot boxes in one of the classrooms:

In another classroom we found ballot boxes that had not yet been covered. On the right, the ballot box for the women's quota, which is on a completely separate voting scheme than the regular seats.

On the left, the regular ballot box.

We hurried through the different parts of the school, while the elderly bawab called half-heartedly for us to come back down, that there was nothing to see. Shortly before leaving we encountered the two men who were arranging the classrooms. They insisted emphatically that there would be no voting for Qasr el-Nil at Salem School. One of them even got a superior on the phone, and after a long conversation again relayed that only voting for Bulaq would take place at the school.

Gameela was doubtful, the head police officer of Qasr el-Nil had informed her the school was indeed a polling station. Additionally, it was on the official list of polling stations for Qasr el-Nil.

Later that night, another candidate visited the Bulaq police station and found two ballot boxes already full of votes. More information to come as soon as I get my hands on it.

Stay tuned for updates.

Update 8:22am: From what I have gathered, the person who found the prepared ballot boxes was unable to file a police report over them because they were wrapped in cellophane. Essentially, he couldn't prove what was inside them, although it was obvious what they were. Journalist Ian Lee has reported a similar story from Alexandria: he saw packages with wax seals leave a polling station about an hour ago. A man holding one said they were t-shirts.