“Updating the voter registration has turned into a sensitive subject. We have suggested that parties themselves choose the people they want to update the registration within the conditions and standards set by the commission. These people have now been recruited and will start their work in the coming days,” Jutiar Adil, a member of the electoral commission’s high council, told Rudaw.
The new team will be working for three to four months on the registration process.
“The salary for the manager of a center is 600,000 dinars, his deputy 550,000, and employees 500,000 dinars per month,” Adil said.
The commission gave up on earlier efforts to clean the old register, opting instead to create a new one based on food ration forms.
“Instead of cleaning the voter registration, which would take a long time, the commission has prepared a new voter registration for the upcoming elections of Kurdistan,” Karwan Jalal, director general of data for Kurdistan Region’s High Independent Referendum and Electoral Commission, told Rudaw in June.
There are longstanding concerns about the accuracy of the voter list in Kurdistan. Concerns about possible fraud have gained traction as officials prepare for parliamentary elections in September against the backdrop of Iraq’s recent election havoc.
The electoral commission had been conducting a thorough review of the voter list and anticipated removing some 100,000 repeated names or those of the deceased.
Electronic voting will not be used after reports of fraud in Iraq’s May 12 vote, the first time Iraq adopted the electronic voting and vote-counting system.
The Iraqi parliament has ordered a full, manual recount of votes to address fraud allegations.
