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Overview: Organization of the December 15 Iraqi National Assembly Elections

What are some of the UN’s activities to support the Iraqi National Assembly elections? Advice and technical assistance are being provided to Iraqis by a team of 40 international technical experts working under the umbrella of the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division. The team is supporting Iraqis with specialized assistance in a half dozen electoral fields such as information technology, electoral regulations, training, and activities such as political party certification and the funding of observers’ networks.

Some of the highlights: In the past, the UN has assisted the IECI with some of the following activities:
Updating the Voter Register
The international electoral team helped the IECI in August 2005 to update the main Voter Register. Following a corrections exercise, 683,134 names were added, 423,187 entries were modified, and the Voter Register now carries the names of 15 million Iraqi voters.

The Constitutional Referendum
International Experts supported the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq in the organization of the October 15 Constitutional Referendum. Drafting referendum day polling procedures, supporting logistical operations and public outreach activities were all part of the UN’s activities.

Operations
A little-known fact about the recent Iraqi referendum and the general elections is that they depend on one of the world’s largest electoral logistics operations. Some 2 million tons of election materials including ballots, polling kits, and voting screens were produced and delivered to Iraq for the referendum and general elections. For the referendum, the IECI delivered voting materials to 6,000 polling centers in 18 governorates and 200,000 staff members worked during the referendum.

Training
The training of Iraqi election officials and staff has been one of the core UN support activities since the establishment of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Several hundred officials and staff members have received dozens of trainings on issues ranging from electoral system design to polling procedures training, logistics, and public outreach.

Observation networks
The creation of domestic observer groups has been one of the many electoral achievements of the past year. 90,000 domestic observers registered for the last elections. So far 28 observer groups with a total of 14,983 observers have been accredited for the National Assembly elections, while 27,671 agents from 59 parties have been endorsed.

Regulatory Framework
Elections require extensive legal support. A dozen regulations have so far been endorsed by the IECI on such issues as political party certification, rules for candidate certification, adjudication on elections-related complaints and disputes, and vote tallying procedures.

Note! Questions concerning the content of this section can be directed to the UNAMI Office in Amman through the feedback form.
 

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