The Commission determines its position on the comprehensive manual count

Baghdad - INA - Nassar Al-Hajj 

The Electoral Commission clarified, today, Thursday, the mechanism for considering appeals, while defining its position regarding claims for a comprehensive manual count.

The Director of the Media and Mass Communication Department at the Commission, Hassan Salman, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the Commission looks at the appeals submitted with one perspective and calls for every case in which the appropriate action can be taken, even if it will be prolonged," noting that "any of the stations calls for counting." And manual sorting after submitting the appeals, it will take time outside the ten-day period specified for considering the appeals, and it will be within the time open for completing the appeals.

Salman stressed, "The matter of resolving the appeals is not related to the specified period, but rather according to the situation that calls for it," noting that ".

He explained, "Each case, according to legal claims and specific evidence, calls for the counting and sorting of any station, the Council of the Commission will issue its decision and count and sort," noting that "the comprehensive counting and sorting procedure is contrary to the law, as the Elections Law No. 9 of 2020, requires the Commission to be counting and sorting electronically".

He pointed out that "otherwise, it will be limited to stations whose results are challenged and call for manual counting and sorting, but in a comprehensive manner, this cannot be done because there is no legal aspect that supports the issue of comprehensive manual counting and sorting for the whole country or for certain governorates in a comprehensive manner."

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Judge Jalil Adnan Khalaf, announced that he had received nearly 1,400 appeals from candidates who objected to the results of the general poll, stressing the start of looking into complaints and appeals.