Visions of Ohio have come to Iraq as we start to hear about problems from the
polling places.

Ishaki, Iraq — Less than two hours after polling stations opened
Saturday morning, potential voters in the Sunni town of Ishaki were
convinced the Iraqi government had rigged the referendum in favor of Kurds,
Shiites and Iran.

Dozens of locals, all planning to vote against the draft constitution,
had been turned away from the single polling station in town. Lying 40 miles
north of Baghdad and just south of Samarra, Ishaki is in the middle of
Iraq’s Sunni central region, Saddam Hussein’s old heartland.

According to election officials here, all those rejected were registered
at another polling station 3 miles away — the only place they would be
allowed to vote under the referendum’s stringent rules. But a driving ban
inside all urban areas, designed to stop suicide bomb attacks, meant these
Sunnis, entering the democratic process for the first time, had effectively
been disenfranchised

See the full article

here.

Just the opening part of that article sends shivers down my spine and
conjures up the memories of last Novembers election here in Ohio where some
people had to wait more than 9 hours in line to vote. It appears that Iraq’s
government has taken a page right out of the Ken Blackwell book of rigging
elections. Perhaps Diebold is running the recount also.

This will do more harm than good as the Sunni’s will feel left out even more
and that will spark the insurgency to step up attacks.