Candidate: Thousands of Iraqis prevented from voting abroad

Iraqis in abroad began voting today in 19 countries as identified by IHEC to Iraqis abroad; to cast their ballots in the public parliamentary elections.

The candidate, Adnan Francois Aoumraa said in an interview with "Shafaq News" that "I received phone calls from the United States as Iraqi voters say that thousands of people will be deprived of voting because of IHEC procedures."

"According to the phone call , the deprivation includes thousands of Iraqis abroad in the United States, Canada, Australia, France and Sweden."

“Officials at polling stations are demanding modern identity papers, as they   prevented Iraqi voters who have passports of those countries based on Iraqi passports originally from casting ballots."

Aoumraa added that "some of the voters who voted in the previous parliamentary elections were also deprived under the pretext that the identities of Civil Status, which they hold are old and does not have the phosphorus seal “.

He appealed "IHEC to be smoother with voters abroad and accept casting their ballots according to the archives in their possession, because most of them do not have modern archives or have passports issued by the countries where they live since several years."

According to IHEC figures , about 785 thousand Iraqi expatriate are entitled to cast their ballots in the elections as 102 polling stations have been allocated for them in 19 countries.

IHEC offices have been distributed to the United States, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, Austria, Spain, France, Norway and New Zealand.

He said that those countries were selected based on statistics collected from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the displaced and the parliamentary elections of 2010.