ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan election commission has called on the people of Kurdistan who live abroad to register their names on its website starting from September 1 in order to vote in the upcoming referendum.
In a statement published on Thursday, the commission said that registration will continue through September 7.
The diaspora will vote on September 23 from 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM Erbil time.
According to Jutyar Adil, an election commission official, when overseas voters register, they will receive a unique code that will allow them to cast their ballots through a special application.
The referendum will include the entire Kurdistan Region and the disputed areas that are otherwise called Kurdistani areas, claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad, such as Kirkuk.
The commission chose electronic voting because they say they are concerned that some nations may not allow them to open voting stations in their countries.
This announcement comes as Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani separately received ambassadors from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union on Thursday.
The independence referendum, just one month away, was on the agenda in all of the meetings with Barzani stressing to the foreign dignitaries that Kurdistan’s relationship with Baghdad is broken.
According to statements published by the presidency, Barzani told the ambassadors that the referendum will take place on time, despite each of them expressing their concerns over the timing of the vote.
Addressing veteran Kurdish Peshmerga, Barzani said on Tuesday that Erbil will not delay the vote “even by a minute.”
Correction: an earlier version of the story erroneously stated that voting for the overseas voters is on the same day as the Kurdistan Region. This has been changed to September 23.
