Fraud cited as poll results challenged

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Fraud cited as poll results challenged

By AP

BAGHDAD -- Election workers will audit results showing unexpected ratios of "yes" to "no" votes from some parts of Iraq in the country's landmark referendum on the draft constitution, officials said yesterday.

The U.S. military said, meanwhile, its warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages Sunday, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a roadside blast. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.

Word of the unexpected results came as Sunni Arab legislator Meshaan al-Jubouri claimed fraud had occurred in Saturday's election, including instances of voting in hotly contested regions by pro-constitution Shiites from other areas. His comments echoed those from other Sunni officials over the weekend.

Iraq's electoral commission said numbers from most provinces "were unusually high according to the international standards" and so would "require us to recheck, compare and audit them."

The commission said it would take random samples from ballot boxes to check the results.

An official with knowledge of the election process said that in some areas the ratio of "yes" to "no" votes seemed far higher or lower than would be expected. The official cautioned it was too early to say whether the figures were incorrect or what caused the unusual results.

The commission and the official did not say what regions had the curious returns.

Voting was believed to have been highly polarized between Sunni Arabs, who largely oppose the charter, and Shiites and Kurds, who supported it. The main electoral battlegrounds were provinces with mixed populations, two of which went strongly "yes."

The province of Diyala, for example, is believed to have a slight Sunni Arab majority. But reports from electoral officials there on Sunday reported a 70-per-cent "yes" vote and a 20-per-cent "no."

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