Mosul voter update lags: Election participation concerns rise

Shafaq News/ Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) office in Nineveh province reported low rates of voter data updates in Mosul, despite ongoing efforts to prepare for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city after Baghdad, is home to over three million people, according to the latest census conducted late last year.

Sufyan al-Mashhadani, the IHEC office spokesperson in Nineveh, told Shafaq News that voter data updates began on March 25 and are continuing through mobile teams and fixed centers across the province.

He said that so far, data for 118,000 voters across Nineveh has been updated, including 18,000 newly registered voters born in 2007 and 60,000 cases involving transfers of voter registration records from one location to another. However, al-Mashhadani noted that central Mosul has shown weak turnout for updating voter records, in contrast to the surrounding districts and rural areas, where there has been a stronger response.

The parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 11, with about 29 million Iraqis eligible to vote.