Complete with clever voter fraud and tactical voting, the election in Iraq was a success. At least, with the exception of the occasional insurgent attack, it can’t be any worse than what we have in the U.S. (which, while having its quirks, isn’t so bad compared to countries where elections tend to start civil wars).

Some random quotes from one article of many on the subject of the Iraqi election:

The polls opened at 7 a.m. to the boom of a mortar explosion inside the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad that injured three people, including a U.S. Marine.

“This the best election yet,” said Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, 53, a shopkeeper …

“It’s great, it’s wonderful, it’s exciting. You can’t describe it in any other words,” said Saif Thamer, 22, a Sunni student voting in Jamiaa, another Baghdad neighborhood known for its insurgent sympathies.

“This election is going to change everything, because everyone realizes now that the only way to take power is through the ballot box,” said Abdullah Mohammed, 32 …

“This is a real election,” said Ammar Sami, 27, a player for Iraq’s national basketball team who voted for the first time in the Yarmouk neighborhood. “The first one didn’t mean anything, but this one will decide the fate of the country.”

“The election is important but it will not stop the attacks,” said Mohammed Ahmed Hassen, 37, who voted for the Iraqi Consensus Front. “I think all this trouble would be less if there wasn’t this presence of U.S. troops.”

Then, there’s Idriss, the tactical and fraudulent voter that proves the Iraqi voting system is truly modeled after ours:

Schoolteacher Lamis Idriss, 30, a Sunni Arab voting for the third time, said she hoped the former U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi would win enough seats to lead the next government. But because she also fears the violence will worsen if Sunni politicians aren’t sufficiently represented in the new legislature, she decided to vote for the main Sunni coalition, the Iraqi Consensus Front.

“Allawi has a lot of supporters, so I want to create a balance,” she explained.

Idriss had also figured out how to vote twice; by coating her finger in Vaseline before dipping it in the indelible ink designed to deter double voting, she was able to remove the ink and vote again. “It’s for the sake of the country,” she said.

(okay, okay, the voter fraud article I linked was just one of many involving every part of the political spectrum, but when I saw one about Daschle, how could I not?)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 00:34 by Michael G. and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.