The fraud in the elections represents the highest degree of violation of human rights because it means the imposition of fraudulent and deceptive people to represent it and mean the displacement of loyal and real representatives of the people; unfortunately we discover that the recent action by the House of Representatives in the selection of the Electoral Commission on the basis of political quotas contrary to what the citizen hopes to achieve the foundations of justice Which could have been achieved through the supervision of a number of fair judges on the Electoral Commission as proposed by several parties.
I was afraid a while ago of this painful outcome therefore I addressed the issue in the media and I have sent a letter on 20 August 2017 to the President of the Republic and his three deputies, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and his deputies, the Prime Minister and the President of the Supreme Judicial Council , The president of the Kurdistan region, Mr. Muqtada al-Sadr, Mr. Ammar al-Hakim, and the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations; but after what had happened recently in the House of Representatives I found myself obliged to disclose the contents of this letter to the honorable citizen to see it, and a number of officials , who are loyal to their country and its future and the future of their children who love their country and really think about the interest of the honorable citizen , may be emerged to adopt these proposals , which establish the foundations of justice and fairness and progress of the country and its development and prosperity.
Subject: How to ensure the integrity of the upcoming elections
After a greeting and peace;
There is no doubt that there is a lot of corruption in the Electoral Commission, and the thinking is focused on changing the Electoral Commission and removing it from the circle of political quotas. But there is no guarantee that even if a new commission is created without political quotas, new officials in the new commission will follow the same tactics as those who preceded them. Unfortunately, corruption has become a general culture that has spread throughout the country.
One of the most important signs of fraud is that the vote counting process takes several days, perhaps two or three weeks or more, but the election process takes place in one day and does not take more than a few hours. While the reality is the opposite. In order to elect any person, he must show his identity papers. After this is confirmed, the electoral form will be given. He will fill it in the special box and put his finger in the special ink. This may take a few minutes while the counting process of the voice of elector does not take more than few seconds that means if the election process takes about eight hours, the counting process will not take more than two hours. This is what we see in all the countries of the world except Iraq .In Iraq, in order to negotiate, sell votes and manipulate with the results, the counting of votes as we mentioned may extend to more than two or three weeks. It is unquestionable that if the counting of votes has lasted more than a few hours, the extra time is a clear evidence of corruption and manipulation of results contrary to the foundations of truth and justice.
How, in this case, to ensure the integrity of the upcoming elections? It is necessary to start changing the Electoral Commission and all those who have been proven corrupt from the employees of the Commission, but moreover, some procedural steps must be taken. In my opinion, if they are followed, in this case, the results of the elections can be achieved at least 90%. Below are the proposals:
1. The first step : Formation of a High Elections Committee , It is proposed that a high committee for elections be composed of nine members (I will include names that I propose and think are appropriate, but perhaps other names could be proposed by the House of Representatives that are better than those proposed). The proposed names are as follows below:
A) Two judges, such as the President of the Supreme Judicial Council (Mr. Faik Zidane), to be the Chairman of this Electoral Commission and one of the other judges, and I propose (Mr. Mekdad Al-Qadi).
B) the head of the United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (Mr. Ban Kubic); and three technical persons nominated by the United Nations preferably from neutral States, such as Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Sweden or others or non-governmental organizations of any State, according to the following expertise First, a person with experience and practice in the management of elections. There are dozens of international organizations such as the European OSCE, British IDOX, ACE International, International US IFES, Denmark SILBA etc.) And hundreds of persons who enjoy with such qualifications within such organizations like (Irvine and Ailsa from Britain, Richard Kidd and Duke Ellis from Australia or others)
Secondly, an engineer specializing in surveillance systems includes photo, cameras, computers and others;
thirdly, a person who has experience and practice in how to detect fraud, stop fraud in elections, and protect hackers’ websites. There are dozens of international organizations in this field, the US True the vote, judicial Watch and the European OLAF and others). There are hundreds of highly qualified people working in these global organizations (Catherine Engelbrecht and Tom Fitton from America and others) and an understanding must be made with the United
Nations to select qualified people for these tasks within two months.
C) The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, such as Mr. Sarbst Mustafa or the alternative in case of change.
D) Two individuals from civil society organizations and I propose Mr. (Hesham Al-Zahabi) and Mrs. (Hanaa Adwar).
2. The second step: It is important to monitor and photograph all polling stations on the day of the election in a timely manner and keep the films for a period of not less than one year. In this case, it is agreed with an international company to take over the matter. The technical persons nominated by the United Nations will develop the specifications of the system and put forward a global tender and study the presentations and put their recommendations to the Supreme Committee in order to choose the best company in terms of efficiency and price and then be agreed with it. It is not permissible in any way for the Commission of Elections to take over the installation of cameras or agree individually with the companies that install the surveillance equipment. Each electoral center is surrounded by a strip so that no electoral box or electoral form can be removed outside this tape.
3. The third step: It is important after the voting that the votes are counted in the same electoral center, and it is not permissible to transfer boxes to the outside of the electoral center. Unfortunately, the boxes were manipulated and changed when they were transferred. If we assume that the voting process extends from the first morning until 6 pm, then the counting process starts from 6 pm and can end easily before 9 pm, a specific location within the electoral center should be specified to open the boxes and counting the votes. The location should be provided with High resolution cameras so that they can read electoral forms, making it difficult or impossible to change or falsify information. Information must be transferred from polling stations to the main electoral center and to the media. The information is sent electronically by (Ballot scanning) to the main polling center through machines that read the forms and counting votes electronically, as well as manual counting. If there is a difference between the results of manual counting and electronic counting, the cause of the difference is verified .In the event of an error (this is very unlikely if the above procedures are taken), but the electronic transmission may be interrupted due to a technical defect. In this case, each five people will be provided with part of the full secret code to enter the main computer and add the lack. I suggest that the five persons to be from the experts from United Nations and representatives of civil society organizations (ie Mr. Hisham Dahabi and Ms. Hana Adwar).
In my opinion, if these measures are taken, the possibility of fraud and manipulation will be very limited or almost non-existent where it is possible in this case to ensure the validity of results in more than 95%.
Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies