Technical issues voters faced in Erbil now resolved: IHEC

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The technical issues that restricted some of the voters from casting their ballots in Sunday’s Iraqi parliamentary elections have been fully resolved, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) told Kurdistan 24 on Sunday.

In the early hours of voting on Sunday morning, technical issues were being reported by those working in the polling stations as well as voters. The machines that process the ballot papers were not working. As a result, the voting process was slowed down in a number of places across the Kurdistan Region, including in its capital city Erbil.

“All the technical issues are now resolved,” Botan Sherko Jaff, the technical assistant at the IHEC Erbil Branch, told Kurdistan 24 English on Sunday.

The electoral process is conducted through two machines. One machine processes the biometric voting cards while the other prints the ballot papers.

“When the machine restarts, it needs a confirmation code which has to be provided from central office in Baghdad,” Sherko Jaff said.

Jaff went on to explain that IHEC workers at the polling centers had some difficulty reaching out to Baghdad’s central center to access the code.

However, Baghdad increased the number of its call centers and the issue was resolved, the official added.

The issues were "fully technical," the electoral commission said.

At around 7:00 a.m. Erbil time, polling centers in the Kurdish capital began the voting process. Over a million voters are eligible to cast their ballots at four electoral constituencies for the province’s 15 parliamentary seats.

Markets are closed down, but traffic between Kurdish provinces of Iraq continues like before, Governor Omed Khoshnaw said on the eve of the elections on Saturday.

Read More: On election day, no travel restrictions but shops will be closed: Erbil governor  

Over 25 million eligible voters are able to vote for more than 3,000 candidates that are competing for the 329-seat parliament.