Allegations of fraud in the Iraqi constitution vote

[cynatnite]

snip:
But the official with knowledge of the counting process said the unexpected results were not isolated to the Shiite and Kurdish provinces and were "all around the country." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the count.

snip:
Ninevah and Diyala are each believed to have a slight Sunni Arab majority. But results reported by provincial electoral officials showed startlingly powerful "yes" votes of up to 70 percent in each.

Allegations of fraud in those areas could throw into question the final outcome. But questions of whether the reported strong "yes" vote there is unusual are complicated by the fact that Iraq has not had a proper census in some 15 years, meaning the sectarian balance is not firmly known.

A prominent Sunni Arab politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, claimed Diyala in particular had seen vote rigging. He said he was told by the manager of a polling station in a Kurdish district of Diyala that 39,000 votes were cast although only 36,000 voters were registered there.

Al-Mutlaq said soldiers broke into a polling station in a Sunni district of the Diyala city of Baqouba and took ballot boxes heavy with "no" votes and that later results showed a "yes" majority. His claims could not be independently verified.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051017/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[MrModerate]

1. Shocking! Who would have thought that an election . . .

Sponsored by the Bushistas would have "irregularities."

[ugarte]

2. I am shocked as well

But after all the Iraqis are learning "democracy" from us.

[samdogmom]

3. My fondest hope is that they used all the same tricks they applied in the

US--except this time they don't work. They get caught and then someone figures out that this isn't the first time they saw the trick so they go back and look at the 2000, 2002, and 2004 US elections and find the same problems. The sham is exposed and all of us "The Election Was Stolen" advocates are finally vindicated!