Muslim Brotherhood Conducting Illegal Campaigning in Egypt (Egypt Election Irregularities) Egypt Liveblog

Some distressing news to bring to our readers. In Egypt, campaigning on the actual election day is illegal. That's not stopping the Muslim Brotherhood from campaigning anyway. The Brotherhood reportedly has an excellent get-out-the-vote effort, which may land it the most seats in Parliament. This could also give the Islamist fundamentalists with ties to Hamas control over 80 million people. One report already says that the Brotherhood's victory would be a massive boon for Hamas.

A few more notes on the Muslim Brotherhood's impressive election day get-out-the-vote campaign: Shadi Hamid, the research director at the Brookings Institution in Doha, tweets that an activist told him each Muslim Brotherhood member was encouraged to bring 100 people to the polls.

And it appears that the Islamist group is conducting illegal campaigning across the election zones. This shouldn't come as a surprise, but they'll do anything to win.

The Muslim Brotherhood, by far Egypt's best-organised political party, planned to have representatives at every polling station today, ostensibly to explain the (somewhat complicated!) voting process. Shadi Hamid, the research director at the Brookings Institution in Doha, also tweeted that they would help guarantee security.

But a number of people are complaining that the Brotherhood representatives are also campaigning, which is illegal on election day.

Mahmoud Salem, a candidate running in Heliopolis on the Free Egyptians ticket (and perhaps better known as the blogger Sandmonkey), tweeted that Brotherhood representatives are handing out political flyers; he reported them to an army officer at the polling station, who did nothing.

Other reports seem to show the Brotherhood organizing large turnout across the nine districts open for elections. The Brotherhood is the best organized party in Egypt-- by far. They had been organized during the Sadat and Mubarak era and unfortunately this will help them at the polls.

Great. Just great.

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