Reply #4: This is almost amusing..........Adjusting the Vote Results???

[Magginkat]

King George wants to dictate the results of the Iraqi election, just like he did in the U.S. So that's what the thieves are calling it...adjusting the voting results? I call it what it is, brazen fraud.

Iraq Rejects U.S. Talk of Adjusting Vote Result

By Luke Baker
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's election body rejected a suggestion in Washington it adjust the results of next month's vote to benefit the Sunni minority if low turnout in Sunni areas means Shi'ites win an exaggerated majority in the new assembly.

Speaking of "unacceptable" interference, Electoral Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said: "Who wins, wins. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be in the election."

U.S. diplomats in Baghdad, at pains to keep their role in the election discreet, declined comment on a New York Times report from Washington which said Sunnis might be granted extra seats if the community's vote was judged to have been too low.

U.S. officials have expressed concern that if the ballot on Jan. 30 fails to reflect Iraq's sectarian and ethnic mix due to violence and boycotts in Sunni areas, then the assembly will lack legitimacy. But any attempt to fix the proportion of seats going to the main groups in advance could have the same effect.

"The Americans are expressing their views and those aren't always the same as the Commission's," Ayar told Reuters.

"But the Commission is absolutely independent. It is not acceptable for anyone to interfere in our business."

Some leaders among Sunni Arabs, a 20-percent minority who dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and before, have called for the election to be put off because violence in the north and west will make it hard for Sunnis to vote.

But Shi'ites, who account for 60 percent of the 26 million population, are keen to exercise their electoral weight.

The New York Times said Shi'ite leaders had been approached about the idea. Shi'ites would be reluctant to see the minority shut out of power if that means more violence, like the twin suicide car bombs that rocked their holy cities a week ago.

Next month's vote will elect 275 legislators who will appoint a president and government and oversee the drafting of a new constitution over the next year.

complete article at:

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtmltype=worldNews&storyID=7179752