Kirkuk ready for November polls with nearly 1M voters

Shafaq News – Kirkuk

Kirkuk, a province in north-central Iraq, has completed all technical, logistical, and security preparations for the 11 November parliamentary elections, with about one million voters expected to cast their ballots.

Ali Abbas al-Bayati, media official of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) in Kirkuk, told Shafaq News on Tuesday that 900,000 citizens will participate in the general vote, while 56,000 security personnel are registered for the special vote scheduled two days earlier.

According to al-Bayati, Kirkuk will host 333 polling centers comprising 1,733 stations across its districts and sub-districts. The commission has also designated 10 media centers for the general vote and five for the special vote to support local and international coverage.

The IHEC, he added, had conducted electronic voting and counting simulations to verify system efficiency and ensure transparency, while security agencies carried out three drills to test deployment and protection measures.

Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed province of Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, and Turkmen, holds 13 parliamentary seats, including three reserved for women.

Read more: Kirkuk’s ballot test: Two decades of unresolved promises

Nationwide, out of nearly 30 million eligible Iraqis, about 21.4 million have completed voter registration and will choose 329 representatives across 18 districts, while roughly seven million will not take part due to unrenewed biometric cards.