Monday, October 17, 2005

Regarding the Iraq elections

A great inside resource as to the Iraqi elections can be found here. The blogger relates needing to walk four miles in order to vote, but states that it was definitely worth it. His last entry at the time of this writing was this past Saturday. What is conspicuously missing is reports of violence, although U.S. troops reportedly kicked some major insurgent ass, and power grids were reportedly taken out of commission by terrorists. Fox News reports that an investigation as to possible vote fraud is underway:
Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated accusations of fraud after initial reports from the provinces suggested the constitution had passed. Among the Sunni allegations are that police took ballot boxes from heavily "no" districts, and that some "yes" areas had more votes than registered voters.
Hmmm... could they be already implementing the democrat playbook? The AP relates:
An official with knowledge of the election process said that in some areas the proportion of "yes" or "no" votes seemed unusual. The official cautioned that it was too early to say whether the unusual figures were actually incorrect or what caused the high or low numbers.
Omar records turnout levels here:

High= more than 66%
Moderate= 33% - 66%
Low= less than 33%

Duhok: moderate.
Erbil: moderate.
Sulaymania: high.
Mosul: high.
Kirkuk: high.
Diyala: high.
Anbar: unknown.
Baghdad: high.
Babil: high.
Kerbala: high.
Wasit: moderate.
Salahiddin: high.
Al-Muthana: moderate.
Al-Qadisiya: low.
Najaf: high.
Thi Qar: moderate.
Maysan: moderate.
Basra: moderate
Votes are still being counted. With the reportedly disproportional number of "yes" votes, one could wonder whether it may simply have been due to a significant number of Iraqis just wanting adopt a Constitution and get on with life, even though many may have not been totally enamored with its contents. Could it be that the Sunni rank-and-file merely "held their nose" and voted as a means to get the stabilization process underway?