Election monitoring networks announced the preliminary report on the observation of the general voting for the Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections at a press conference attended by more than ten satellite channels. The networks congratulated the Kurdish people on the success of the elections and thanked the entities that contributed to its success, particularly the local and international observers, the electoral commission, the media, the federal government, and the regional government. They clarified that the monitoring networks observed the election with approximately 1,600 local observers, more than 30 mobile teams, in addition to an international observation team. The networks also highlighted some observations about the electoral process, noting that these are preliminary findings. These observations and the initial report include:
Variation in the implementation of the commission's procedures due to the lack of experience of some of the commission's staff in the Kurdistan Region.
Continuing electoral campaigns during the voting process.
Delay in opening some polling stations due to equipment malfunctions.
Repeated exclusion of observers and political entity representatives.
Monitoring cases of violations of ballot secrecy due to the use of mobile phones.
The presence of individuals and security forces inside polling stations.
Monitoring cases of electoral violence between security forces and the Commission staff, as well as between voters and the Commission staff.
Failure of devices to scan fingerprints, resulting in the deprivation of some voters of their right to vote.
Approximately 124 complaints were submitted by political entity representatives.
34 cases of mismatch between the electronic results and the manual counting and sorting were observed, largely due to the Commission staff's unfamiliarity with the procedures.
It is worth mentioning that EIN Network for Election Monitoring and Democracy is observing the elections in the Kurdistan Region with more than 200 observers distributed across polling centers and stations. This effort is within the framework of the Alliance of National Networks and Organizations to Monitor the Kurdistan Regional Parliament Elections, which employs more than 1,600 observers, and within the "Democracy and Transparency: Empowering Civic Engagement and Media Freedom" project, in partnership with the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and supported by the European Union.
It is also notable that the monitoring process is long-term, starting from the stage of enacting the election law and continuing until the general voting day on October 20th. This includes monitoring the counting, sorting, auditing, and the final announcement of election results.