Did 60% of Iraqi's Really Vote-Iraq's "Independent Commission Predicted.."

[poe]

The question remains: what percentage of the population chose to register? What percentage of adult citizens participated? Iraq has a population of at least 25 million, plus expatriates were allowed to vote overseas. (emphasis added, "Iraq, the Vote: The Press Sizes Up the Election," Editor & Publisher, January 30, 2005)
All good questions. I'd also ask where the Independent Election Commission of Iraq got the figure of 8 million voters.

The answer is that's exactly the same number the commission predicted before the elections:
A senior election official estimates that half of Iraq's 15 million eligible voters <"[t>here are 14 million eligible voters inside Iraq . . . plus 1.2 million abroad allowed to vote in 14 countries including the United States, Britain, Iran and Syria"] will take part in this month's national election and says that to encourage a high turnout, those living in insurgency-racked areas will be allowed to vote in safer communities.

Farid Ayar of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission said he expected 7 to 8 million Iraqis to vote on Jan. 30 in a ballot seen as a major step toward fulfilling U.S. goals of building democracy here after decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. (emphasis added, Hamza Hendawi/Associated Press, "Half of Iraq Population Estimated to Vote," January 14, 2005)

What precision! A sign that elections in Iraq have been raised to the level of science, far superior to the 4-billion-dollar election industry in the United States that showed disturbing discrepancies between exit polls and vote tallies? Not! A safer hypothesis is that it's a sign of how scripted Iraqi elections were. If Washington needs about 8 million Iraqi voters to achieve a "respectable" turnout of half the eligible voters (Hendawi, January 14, 2005), the Independent Election Commission of Iraq has to give that number to Washington before and after the elections. After all, "demonstration elections" are theater -- for the American, rather than Iraqi, audience.

Don't believe any of these numbers. Consider that there are 15 million Iraqis eligible to register to vote ONLY if the voting age is 16! If there are 25 million Iraqis and 10 million of them are under the age of 16, then there is no way there can be anywhere near 15 million of voting age. Assuming though that there are 15 million old enough to vote, to suggest that 95-100 percent of those 15 million registered to vote is simply ridiculous. I suspect that if the 8 million figure is correct as to who actually voted, it is closer to the 75 percent level of registered voters - probably more like 80 percent or more. I doubt that there were more than 10-12 million who actually registered - given the fact that there were not even public places TO register in some locations and no-one to do the registering in many. There would be 15 million registered voters only if the Iraqi population is the most fearless bunch of people on the face of the earth and if the Iraqi Sunnis - and a goodly portion of Shia as well - have a whole lot less respect for the advice of their religious and tribal leaders than we have been led to believe.

[Sinistrous]

1. I am sure there will be enough ballots in the boxes to cover

anybody's estimates of voter turnout and the results they predicted. However, I am less than certain that they were all put in the ballot boxes by individual Iraqi voters.