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Stuffing Irag's Ballot Boxes

Sep-29-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

With the referendum on Iraq's draft constitution coming next month, a 1/25 SBCT soldier recounts irregularities in the previous election process.

Link to Full Article
By Gareth Porter, Asia Times

WASHINGTON - If the referendum on Iraq's draft constitution next month is conducted fairly, it now appears very likely that the document will be defeated by a two-thirds majority in the three Sunni-dominated provinces of Anbar, Salahadeen and Nineveh, plunging Iraq into a new political crisis.

However, one way such a defeat could be averted is by massive vote fraud in the key province of Nineveh. According to an account provided by the US liaison with the local election commission, supported by physical evidence collected by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), Kurdish officials in Nineveh province tried to carry out just such a ballot-stuffing scheme in last January's election. [...]

In the January election, the Kurds dealt with the problem of being a relatively small minority in the province by stuffing the ballot boxes, as recounted by Major Anthony Cruz, an US Army reserve civil affairs officer assigned to work with the province's electoral commission.

Cruz, now back in Los Angeles, provided a detailed account of the election in Nineveh to IPS in interviews.

The 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division ("Stryker Brigade") was responsible for getting ballot boxes and ballots to polling places on the Nineveh Plain in January's election. But it relied on battle-hardened Kurdish Pershmerga militiamen to maintain security in the towns and villages, and did not know its way around the area well enough to deliver ballot boxes there without Kurdish help, according to Cruz. [...]

This interesting tale continues.....


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