Hundreds of Iraq security personnel barred from voting

Hundreds of Iraqi security personnel were prevented from voting in parliamentary polls yesterday, local police sources told the Anadolu Agency.

“Electoral officials stopped about 450 security personnel from voting in Saladin province, while another 100 were prevented from casting ballots in the city of Samarra,” Police Lieutenant Numan Al-Jubouri told the news site.

Al-Jubouri attributed the problem to malfunctioning electronic voting machines and the fact that the would-be voters’ names did not appear on official voter lists.

Nineveh Police Captain Safa Al-Abbasi said that a number of voting machines in Nineveh province had stopped working due to intermittent power outages.

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Shortly before noon yesterday, several voting machines – which were being used for the first time in Iraqi elections – malfunctioned, according to Baghdad security officials.

Iraqi police, military and other security personnel cast ballots yesterday in the country’s first parliamentary poll since 2014 in which more than 7,000 candidates are vying for seats in Iraq’s 328-member national assembly.

Voting among the general public is set to take place nationwide on Saturday.

Roughly 24 million out of 37 million Iraqis are registered to take part in the polls.