In the run-up to, during and after the Turkish general election of June 2015, numerous accusations of electoral fraud and violence were made by opposition parties. Electoral fraud in Turkey has usually been most extensive during local elections, where individual votes have significantly larger impact in determining local administrations. Although the 2014 presidential election saw little evidence of electoral misconduct, issues regarding voter records as well as extensive media bias have been controversial issues that have remained largely unaddressed. In both the local and presidential elections in 2014, several voters reported that ballot papers had been sent to addresses that are wrong or do not exist as well as voters that have been dead for a substantial amount of time.

In March 2015, an unnamed AKP source close to one of the party's deputy leaders Süleyman Soylu revealed that his party had staged electoral fraud during the 2014 local elections and claimed that several AKP employees were uncomfortable with their tactics. The source claimed that the party had a 5-point plan for every election.

The use of bogus opinion polls The intentional miscalculation of votes during counting, resulting in incorrect results being recorded and sent to the electoral council The bribery or threatening of returning officers to stop the miscounting being reported to the authorities The misleading announcement of the AKP's scale of victory early on in the election night to demotivate opposition counting observers and incentivising them to abandon the ballot boxes The use of fake addresses and dead people as voters

The source also confirmed that the sharp rise in electricity cuts during election nights were deliberate and were intended to disrupt the counting process.

Several candidates and party offices were all subject to politically motivated attacks, culminating in the death of 4 supporters of the pro-Kurdish and pro-minority Peoples' Democratic Party after two bombs exploded during a rally in Diyarbakır on 5 June. The interference of President Erdoğan, who was accused of covertly campaigning for the AKP under the guise of 'public opening' rallies, was also controversial since the President is constitutionally required to exercise political neutrality.

Electoral fraud and misconduct Pre-election campaigning restrictions and violations On 3 March, the governor of İzmir took a series of decisions curbing the ability of citizens to protest against the 'established order', limiting freedom of expression and limiting all forms of political propaganda and demonstrations to written statements only. The İzmir Bars Association stated that they would appeal against the decisions, accusing them of being undemocratic and counterproductive. The decisions were later reversed by the governor's office amid heavy protests on social media.

In May, a CHP election stand in Erzurum was blocked by large police lorries with officers demanding that party flags be removed from the area. Erzurum's front-running CHP candidate protested the decision and asked why large lorries accompanied the officers who were simply demanding party activists to take down flags. The lorries parked in front of the election stand, obstructing its view to the members of the public. In Rize, the AKP run Rize municipality sealed off a wedding salon that had been rented out by the MHP for their campaign, eventually leading to party activists breaking into the building. Although the municipality claimed that the salon lacked the required legal documents, the fact that it had only been sealed after the MHP rented it out led to party activists describing the situation as a 'black mark' in the history of democracy. The MHP also filed a criminal complaint against the AKP-run Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, accusing it of tearing down their banners and flags.

The AKP have also attempted to increase participation and ratings for their electoral rallies and televised interviews with key government politicians through cold calling. Cold calling and messaging for political reasons was officially made illegal on 1 May 2015 after the Law no. 6563 took effect on that day. On 25 May, a message sent out to millions of people around Turkey by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality advertised a TV programme where the Mayor Melih Gökçek was due to make 'important statements'. The message resulted in the complaints hotline crashing due to a sudden surge in complaints being made about the advertisement.

Overprinting of ballot papers In preparation for the election, the Supreme Electoral Council ordered the printing of 73,988,955 ballot papers despite a domestic electorate of about 53 million. 897,000 of these ballot papers were to be sent to 33 customs gates for voters voting at the border or airports, while 2,917,200 were printed for Turkish expats voting abroad. The significantly large number of ballot papers printed despite the total electorate renewed controversy that had been caused during the 2014 local and presidential elections, where opposition candidates voiced concerns about how spare ballot papers would be utilised.

Use of state funds The use of state funds for financing their campaigns is an issue that the AKP has continuously been accused of in the preceding local and presidential elections. In preparation for the general election, AKP founder and former leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held rallies in numerous provinces and criticised the opposition. Despite being constitutionally neutral as the President of Turkey, Erdoğan has been accused of implicitly supporting the AKP's election campaign. During a rally in Batman, Erdoğan replied to questions about how his rallies were financed, saying "I'm holding rallies with state money. This is my natural right." The admission that Erdoğan was using state finances to fund AKP-leaning rallies was proven to be heavily controversial, with the HDP complaining to the Supreme Electoral Commission, though their complaint was rejected soon after.

On 9 May, an AKP campaign van was spotted with a black license plate, with a black license plate in Turkey meaning that the vehicle is an official vehicle of the state. The use of official state vehicles for campaigning is forbidden under Turkish law. On the same day, an AKP campaign poster was spotted in an Istanbul bus garage being accompanied by the logo of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which was again accused of being a violation of electoral law. On 17 May, it emerged that a sudden shortage of İETT public busses in Istanbul was a result of many being taken out of service to provide a shuttle between different towns and the AKP's electoral rally in the Maltepe district.

On 11 May, the Governor of Denizli Province, Şükrü Kocatepe, was caught demanding minibuses and other vehicles from various institutions in Denizli in preparation for the AKP's electoral rally. While governors are appointed by the government, they legally must remain politically neutral. The fact that they are appointed by the government mean that it is very simple to appoint a partisan governor however. The actions of the Governor were strongly condemned by CHP MPs Muharrem İnce and Adnan Keskin.

Media censorship

On 7 April, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and 166 other websites were blocked for distributing the images of DHKP-C terrorists taking Istanbul prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage. The court responsible for the block argued that the images could be used as propaganda for the terrorist organisation and were distressing for the prosecutor's family. In addition, criminal investigations were launched into four newspapers that also features the images. The proximity of the block to the election, which bears similarity to the blocking of social media sites just weeks before the 2014 local elections, raised accusations of growing government censorship against opposition views. Allegations were also made that social media sites were blocked to stop potential incriminating evidence regarding the government's involvement in the hostage crisis from emerging.

The state-funded broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) took the decision to not broadcast a campaign advert by the opposition CHP, because it was perceived to be openly critical of the governing AKP. The advert featured a cat walking near a transformer, seen as a reference to the AKP Minister of Energy Taner Yıldız's claims that nationwide electricity cuts during the 2014 local elections occurred due to cat entering a transformer. The TRT, which has previously been accused of pro-government bias, was accused of censorship and subsequently taken to court by the CHP. A CHP delegate to the media regulator RTÜK, Ali Öztunç, later claimed that the advert had not broken any laws and that the AKP was directly behind the censorship. A tradesman from Düzce sent the CHP to court for causing provocation and protesting rival parties by applauding, referencing the CHP's 'National Applause' themed election campaign. The individual was later discovered to be the director of public broadcasting for the pro-AKP Diriliş newspaper.

23 Turkish film-makers withdrew their films from the Istanbul Film Festival after a documentary set in PKK militant camps was withdrawn from the schedule. While the Ministry of Culture claimed that the documentary did not have the correct registration certificate, one film-maker claimed that the government were trying to increase their influence in the creative sector, similar to their record in the media sector. A documentary on the Gezi Park protests had been removed from the Antalya Golden Orange film festival in 2014.

On April 30, television presenter Cüneyt Özdemir claimed on Twitter that the press was under pressure from both financial and moral intimidation. He claimed that since he had joined the channel Kanal D he had come under increased intimidation from multiple sources, whom he said were 'scared' of an objective and neutral media. It was revealed by the broadcasting regulator RTÜK that between 1 and 7 May, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) did not broadcast a single opposition party electoral rally, instead focusing only on AKP ones. Several other smaller TV channels were also revealed to have given only a miniature amount of coverage to the opposition campaign in comparison to hours of coverage of the AKP.

Electricity cuts Turkish elections have been increasingly sabotaged by electricity cuts during the vote counting process in recent years. The most recent example was the power cuts taking place on the eve of 30 March 2014, on the eve of the 2014 local elections. Energy minister Taner Yıldız caused outrage by blaming the power outages in 21 different provinces on a cat entering a transformer, which the BBC initially thought was an April fools joke. The opposition has alleged that electricity cuts on election nights are intentional and the commotion they cause is used to manipulate the counting process in the governments favour. Several whistleblowers within the AKP have also confirmed such allegations.

On 31 March, a nationwide blackout hit Turkey, causing disruption throughout the country for more than a day. The government have yet to confirm the reason behind the blackout, thought several theories by electrical engineers have proposed that such a large blackout could have been intentional or due to cyber terrorism. Opposition journalists and whistleblowers on Twitter put forward several accusations, claiming that the cuts were used to steal the passwords of the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) or were an attempt to get voters used to electricity cuts so that a power outage on the eve of the election is not taken as a surprise.

Following the nationwide power blackout, the YSK requested electricity generators for election night.

Voting record irregularities