Technical glitches hinder results transmission

BAGHDAD, December 16 – As the Iraqi special elections for security forces, displaced persons, prisoners, and other groups concluded at 6 PM today, technical challenges have emerged in the electronic counting and result transmission process, according to election monitors and officials.

Held before the general public vote scheduled for Monday, the special elections saw around 706,000 voters casting their ballots. However, numerous electronic counting devices across Iraq failed to transmit the results via the result acceleration mechanism, with technicians citing “server overload” as a possible cause.

Vian Sheikh, head of the Tamouz Organization’s Monitoring Network, reported that a significant number of polling stations, especially in Basra, struggled to electronically upload results due to this server issue. “Approximately half of the centers monitored by the organization in Basra faced difficulties”.

The law mandates the Electoral Commission to electronically upload results within six hours after the closure of ballot boxes. Concerns are being raised about the potential recurrence of these issues during the general voting day, especially given the expected higher voter turnout.

A source within the Commission told 964media that similar problems had occurred in previous elections but were resolved with the assistance of German experts. The Commission is now considering reaching out to Korean experts, the manufacturers of the devices, to avoid such technical issues on the general voting day.

According to Article 10 (d) of the Election Law, if results are not transmitted within six hours, the ballot boxes are to be moved to the central auditing center in the province for manual counting and verification as per the procedures adopted by the Commission.