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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Iraqis may have to
wait weeks to learn the winners of this weekend's
election, with guerrilla attacks and other factors
expected to slow the vote tally, a foreign election
adviser in Baghdad said on Thursday.
In the interest of transparency, some early results
will trickle out as ballots are counted, but Iraq's
Independent Electoral Commission won't be able to
declare winners until a painstaking count is
finished, said the adviser, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
"This isn't the type of election where you have a
big tote board somewhere and you're marking the
returns as they come in," he said in a telephone
interview. "It won't be on Sunday night."
Iraq's style of election makes it especially
difficult to call the results quickly or to question
voters leaving the polls to predict an early winner,
as is done in the United States.
Iraqis will vote for a list of candidates rather
than for individuals, with no possibility for split
ticket voting. Seats in Iraq's 275-member National
Assembly will be handed out according to the party's
showing nationwide.
This fact makes the last 10 percent of the ballots
counted as critical as the first 10 percent, the
official said. A strong showing by one party in the
last ballots counted could significantly alter the
results.
The prime minister's job also hinges on the final
count. The National Assembly will choose a
three-member presidential council which in turn
picks the prime minister. The prime minister and his
Cabinet must be approved by the assembly.
When voting finishes Sunday night, election
officials are supposed to count the ballots at the
roughly 5,300 polling sites. Sometime later, they
must physically deliver the totals to the electoral
commission in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green
Zone. For security reasons officials won't say how
those tally sheets will be delivered.
Election officials don't yet know how long it will
take workers in the Green Zone to count the results
and name the winners. It's expected to take a week
or more.
"It will be a matter of a few days before any data
comes out and longer to declare any conclusive
result. It could easily run to a couple weeks," the
adviser said.
Guerrillas have vowed to attack any target related
to the elections with the intent of disrupting the
vote and tainting the legitimacy of the emerging
government. Security measures at election sites will
also delay the results, the adviser said.
The commission must pore over some 65,000 summary
election forms, one from each voting booth for each
election – two in most of Iraq, three in Kurdistan.
Each form will have dozens or hundreds of data
points on it that must be counted twice – and a
third time if there are discrepancies.
"Under any circumstances, this is time-consuming,"
the adviser said. "In Iraq, the commission is doing
this for the first time. A week or two isn't an
especially long time to do this work."
Since the world's interest in the vote is so
intense, the official said Iraqi election officials
want to start releasing results – even if they
aren't final – within a few days, so the vote isn't
seen as tainted or manipulated.
The official said he knew of no exit polling planned
for Sunday's vote. He said he doubted whether exit
polls could be accurate in Iraq, a country with
little reliable demographic data, an intimidated
electorate and an insurgency that has vowed to blast
polling stations and those who frequent them.
AP
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