The citizens voted in 32 provinces in east of Turkey between 07.00 a.m -4.00 p.m. and in 49 provinces in west of Turkey in 08.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.
Five referenda have so far been held in Turkey regarding constitutional amendments.
The first referendum took place for 1961 Constitution which was prepared after military intervention on May 27, 1960. The constitution was adopted with 61.7 percent affirmative votes in the referendum, held on July 9, 1961.
Under the constitution submitted to referendum, Cemal Gursel was elected as the fourth president of Turkey.
After 21 years, Turkish voters went to polls for the second time to vote on 1982 Constitution which was prepared after military intervention September 12, 1980.
The second referendum took place on November 7, 1982. A total of 18,885,488 electors joined the referendum. 17.5 million of the electors (91.37 percent) voted in favor of the Constitution, whereas 8.3 percent gave "no" votes.
1982 Constitution took effect on November 9, 1982 and Kenan Evren became the president. Evren's term in office expired on November 9, 1989.
Third referendum took place on September 6, 1987 to decide whether the banned leaders should be allowed to return to politics or not.
According to results announced by Higher Electoral Board on September 12, 1987, 50.3 percent of the electors voted "yes" and 49.8 percent voted "no" out of the 24,436,821 electors. The political bans were thus cancelled.
Turkey's fourth referendum was thus on a constitutional change to allow the local elections to move to the earlier date. The referendum took place on September 25, 1988. 65 percent of the electors voted "no" for the change and 35 percent "yes". Thus early local elections did not take place.
The fifth referendum regarding Constitutional texts took place on October 21, 2007. The Constitutional amendments also included arrangement election of the president by people with 5+5 formula. 67.5 percent of the registered electors said "yes" and 31.05 percent said "no" in the referendum and thus the constitutional amendment was adopted.
On October 3, 2001, Parliament adopted a law making amendment to the preamble of the Constitution and Article 33.
Then president Ahmet Necdet Sezer approved 32 articles of the law, however decided to put article 27 (arranging subsidies and travel allowances to parliamentarians) to referendum. The law, apart from Article 27, was enacted on October 2001 after being published in the Official Gazette.
However, the Parliament made an amendment to the article in question and thus decision of then President Sezer to put the article to referendum was annulled.
