ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Problems that occurred during advanced voting in Iraq’s provincial elections have been fixed ahead of the general vote on Monday and any further issues that may arise will not get in the way of announcing preliminary results, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said on Sunday.
During early voting on Saturday for security forces and displaced persons (IDPs), complaints were filed about voting machines not taking fingerprints and final reports not sent to the commission from some voting centers.
These issues, especially final reports not being sent, “are solved and will not happen during the elections. The commission guarantees that,” Hassan Hadi, a member of the IHEC’s press team, told Rudaw on Sunday.
“What happened was unexpected because the devices were tested multiple times before use. It was unpredictable,” Hadi said.
If any problems do occur, they will not stop the commission from announcing preliminary results.
“The commission is obliged by law to announce the election results within 24 hours. So, if some polling stations have problems and the final report is not sent, the commission will announce the preliminary results within the allotted time,” Hadi said.
Iraq will hold its long-anticipated provincial elections in 15 provinces on Monday. The last provincial council elections took place in 2013.
The provincial councils were created by the 2005 Iraqi constitution following the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime. They hold significant power, including setting budgets for several key sectors such as education, health, and transport, but are accused of being rife with corruption.
The elections will mark the return of the Sainte-Laguë voting method, a controversial system that uses the single-constituency per province system instead of the multiple-constituency system that was adopted for the 2021 parliamentary elections as part of the demands of the Tishreen protesters.
The last time Iraqis went to the polls, for a parliamentary election in 2021, there was record-low turnout as many voters were disillusioned with the democratic process and had little trust in the political system.
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