Iraqi electoral commission to announce initial results within 24 hours

BAGHDAD, December 18 — Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has announced that results for the provincial council elections will be announced on Tuesday, adding that votes will be retrieved from electronic strips produced by the voting machines.

The head of IHEC’s media team, Emad Jameel, shared:

According to the election law, preliminary election results will be announced within 24 hours of the end of the voting process. Therefore, the Commission will announce the preliminary results tomorrow, Tuesday, which will include the results from electronic stations connected to the servers and some stations that experienced technical issues. The Commission will disclose the number of stations and the manual counting and sorting mechanisms one or two days after the voting process. Accurate counting and sorting will be conducted after retrieving electronic tapes from voting devices. The preliminary results will be announced tomorrow, and the final results will be declared after verifying stations with technical issues. After authentication and completion of legal procedures, the final results will be announced directly.

Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners at the Electoral Commission, added, “There are 35,000 polling stations in Iraq that opened at 7:00 a.m. today, and so far, we have not recorded any technical problems. The role of the Commission is administrative, logistical, and technical only.”