Commission: Accusations of rigging the Kurdistan Parliament elections are invalid and those claiming

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[size=52]Commission: Accusations of rigging the Kurdistan Parliament elections are invalid and those claiming them must prove them[/size]

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October 23, 2024
The head of the electoral administration in the Iraqi Electoral Commission, Amer Al-Husseini, described the accusations of fraud and tampering with the election results in the Kurdistan Region as “null and void and without any basis in reality, and whoever claims fraud must prove it.”[/size]
[size=45]Amer Moussa confirmed: Today, Wednesday (October 23, 2024), that the elections were held with “the highest levels of transparency, integrity and neutrality” as well as with “the best that election technology has achieved.”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that the voting was conducted using “the biometric electronic card that includes all the data of the real voters,” and therefore “it is not possible to vote on behalf of the cardholder no matter how hard the person tries.”[/size]
[size=45]He also explained that the voter registry is “electronic, not paper, and was distributed to polling stations, such that each station contains a specific number of names that no one else can vote in,” adding that the counting and sorting process was carried out in “three identical ways.”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that at the beginning of the election day, the station manager informs the agents of the political entities, parties and candidates about “the ballot box being empty, and prepares a report on that, and the agency issues a report on opening the station that includes all the details.”[/size]
[size=45]The head of the electoral administration added that at noon, the device issues a report “that includes the number of voters and cards entered into the device, the number of cards replaced due to errors, and all the details... and the same is the case at the end.”[/size]
[size=45]He referred to the “electronic count” of the station’s votes, as well as the “manual count in front of representatives of all entities and candidates,” explaining that the papers are “counted paper by paper, and match the report issued by the agency, so where is the forgery in that?”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that the paper is stamped with ink “not available in Iraq,” and that “the device takes a picture of it when it is entered,” stressing that the Commission’s stamp “cannot be removed.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that someone was able to invalidate the paper by putting another stamp on it, the original image of the ballot paper is stored in the device," stressing that the commission had put this feature in place to prevent "the paper from being invalidated by putting another stamp on it."[/size]
[size=45]The head of the electoral administration considered the accusations of missing voters’ votes from the ballot boxes and counting them as someone else’s as “disturbing the electoral process,” calling on those who make these accusations to “file a complaint to verify their validity, so as not to raise doubts among others.”[/size]
[size=45]On Tuesday, the Kurdistan Justice Group, the Kurdistan Islamic Union, the People’s Front, and the National Position Movement announced in a joint press conference in Sulaymaniyah that they had “a lot of strong evidence of manipulation and fraud” in the Kurdistan Parliament elections, claiming that they did not receive their “real” votes.[/size]
[size=45]The Independent High Electoral Commission announced, on Monday, the preliminary results of the Kurdistan Parliament elections, for the special and general polls, which took place in the Kurdistan Region (Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dohuk, and Halabja) last Friday and Sunday.[/size]
[size=45]The commission explained that 2,087,975 voters cast their votes in the special and general polls in the Kurdistan Parliament elections out of a total of 2,899,578 registered voters.[/size]
[size=45]Earlier, the head of the media team at the Iraqi Electoral Commission, Imad Jamil, confirmed that the commission had not registered any “red complaints” so far, and had “not detected any manipulation” in the results of the Kurdistan Parliament elections.[/size]
[size=45]The spokeswoman for the Iraqi Electoral Commission, Jumana Al-Ghalay, also denied the existence of “forgery or manipulation” in the results of the Kurdistan Parliament elections, noting that the commission is “accustomed” to such accusations “in every electoral process.”[/size]
[size=45]In turn, the head of the Arab World Election Network monitoring mission, Gulchan Saglam, confirmed that the Kurdistan Parliament elections were free of fraud, saying: “I am certain that the fraud rate is zero.”[/size]
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