Julian and I arrived at the polling station nearest my apartment building at 7:45pm to observe closing. The room was a major lecture hall for the Geology/Geography institute of the Mongolian National University and as such had its own contribution to make to the atmosphere of the voting process and closing procedures. As a lecture hall it is one the most spacious venue we managed to visit. Everyone was just as attentive and professional as at the opening ceremony. We were welcomed in by the ladies working the registration table, and took our place at the tables specially marked for observers. The stage curtains in the back provided a nice backdrop for the two machines and looked vastly softer than our short wooden school chairs.
Naturally, we were not there to admire aesthetics and were happy to see everyone getting down to business. While we were expecting a final rush, there was only one voter still filling in her ballot when the entrance was closed at 8pm sharp. They then proceeded to open the blue ballot box that contained the ballots from those citizens physically unable to walk to their polling station. For our section, we had only tow such ballots, which were quickly loaded into the machine. Then the real fun began. The results were printed! I was able to obtain a separate copy just for Julian and I, and we have thus compiled the following information, based SOLELY on the results from one polling station:
DP: 459 votes, 33.77%
MPP: 421 votes, 30.98%
MPRP-MNDP: 229 votes, 16.85%
CWGP: 159 votes, 11.7%
Our polling station had a 64% voter turnout (1396 out of 2171).
The feeling on the ground now is that DP has a high chance of taking the majority, suggesting that what we saw in our section of Sukhbaatar District is at least moderately indicative of larger voting trends.
Results should be available shortly, but DP continues to tweet about wins in many provinces, further supporting our initial speculations.
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