Iraq's electoral body invites new evidence supporting alleged election fraud

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region  - Iraq’s electoral commission on Tuesday announced that it has begun accepting evidence again in support of alleged election result errors or violations, state media reported as most of the submitted appeals of the October 10 results have been found to be groundless.

“Whoever has new evidence about the submitted appeals can file them within three days,” the commission’s director of media and public communications Hassan Salman said.

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) started the manual recount of votes from certain polling stations where complaints were filed last week. 

The results of most stations were identical following the recount, according to Salman.

The commission gave parties the option to file complaints after it announced the official preliminary election results on October 17.

Over a thousand submitted appeals were investigated by IHEC but most of them were rejected for “lack of evidence” or detail.

Iraqis voted in an early election on October 10. The preliminary results handed the most seats to the Sadrist movement, Taqadum, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the State of Law Coalition.

Iran-backed parties affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) such as the Fatih Alliance did not do as well as expected and have claimed fraud.