Officials Back Away from Early Estimates of Iraqi Voter Turnout

By Greg Mitchell

(February 02, 2005) -- Everyone, of course, is thrilled that so many Iraqis turned out to vote, in the face of threats and intimidation, on Sunday. But in hailing, and at times gushing, over the turnout, has the American media (as it did two years ago in the hyping of Saddam's WMDs) forgotten core journalistic principles in regard to fact-checking and weighing partisan assertions?

It appears so. For days, the press repeated, as gospel, assertions offered by an election official that 8 million Iraqis went to the polls on Sunday, an impressive 57% turnout rate. I questioned those figures as early as last Sunday, and offered the detailed analysis below on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday night, John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reported that Iraqi election officials have quietly "backtracked, saying that the 8 million estimate had been reached hastily on the basis of telephone reports from polling stations across the country and that the figure could change."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000788083


Saw this on dailykos, but not here. Great read.

I thought the wording was suspicious too.

"For several days now, many in the media have routinely referred to the figure of 8 million Iraqi voters, following the lead of Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq. In the original press citations, what Ayar actually said (hedging his bets) was "as many as 8 million," which most reports quickly translated as "about 8 million," and then, inevitably, "8 million." A
Knight Ridder report was among the few that characterized this as only a guess."

Must make B*sh look good by lying about the number of voters so that he can say what he did was right.

Surprise, surprise surprise

Is it even possible anymore to believe anything you see or hear on American news?? Will we ever know the truth about this? Probably not. Bush will spin this for as long as he can get get press out of it.
This whole thing makes me sick.
Why don't some news reporters interview Iraqi citizens? They will tell the truth because they don't know any better.

Sorry for the size of this, but I can't find the original board. It was on the Home Page, though. Feel free to add that link, if you can.


Iraq turnout has been reported as high as 72%.

Iraq population breakdown and turnout estimate.
Posted by kuozzman
Added to homepage Sun Jan 30th 2005, 07:44 PM ET
Any updated or more specific information would be appreciated.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.ht...

Population:
25,374,691 (July 2004 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 40.3% (male 5,198,966; female 5,039,173)
15-64 years: 56.7% (male 7,280,167; female 7,094,688)
65 years and over: 3% (male 357,651; female 404,046) (2004 est.)

Ethnic Groups:
Arab 75%-80%, Kurdish 15%-20%, Turkoman, Assyrian or other 5%

Religions:
Muslim 97% (Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37%), Christian or other 3%

The KC Star reported today that "In addition, Iraq's Sunni Muslim population, which makes up about 20 percent of the nation's 15 million eligible voters, may heed the call of its clerics and boycott the election. The clerics contend that there is too much violence for their supporters to feel safe going to the polls."

So I've read from several sources that estimates are currently that 8 million people voted-1.5 million doing so from outside of Iraq.


So that leaves 6.5Mil out of 15Mil= 43.33% turnout.

"The election in Iraq was a resounding success" - Bush 1/30/05

-Iraqi Turnout Vindicates Bush's Vision, Rice Says (Bloomberg)

-Iraq polls close amid reports of high turnout (Financial Times)

-Iraq poll turnout high (Reuters)

-Iraq poll turnout at least 72 pct (Reuters)

-Voter turnout in Iraq reflects an electorate eager to grasp democracy, U.S. pollsters say (San Francisco Chronicle)

-High Turnout In Iraq Poll Despite Attacks (Sky News)

-Iraqi voter turnout higher than predicted, UN says (ABC News)

matt819 (1000+ posts) Sun Jan-30-05 08:27 PM
Response to Original message

4. Fun with numbers


Let's assume the population figures are correct. That means there are 15,136,552 Iraqis over the age of 15. Voting age is 18. Just for shits and grins, let's take out 1.5 million Iraqis from this mix -- those 15, 16, and 17 years old. That brings the registration-eligible Iraqis to 13,636,552.

If your numbers are right -- 8 million voters, 1.5 million of them expats -- then 6.5 million Iraqis voted in Iraq. That's 47.6%. I have a little hearburn here, though, since NYT and BBC reported last week (probably same source) that only 255,000 Iraqi expats registered to vote. So where's that 1.5 million figure coming from?

Then there's the number of Iraqis registered to vote. I scanned a few articles through a Google search and was unable to find a number of Iraqis registered to vote in Iraq. Maybe that number is around somewhere, maybe not. But take a closer look at the articles asserting 70+% turnout and see if they mention numbers.

That was only about, what, 10-15% of the total eligible to vote?

Around half of the eligible citizenry vote in a major U.S. election. It is said it is a travesty - jaded, spoiled, ignorant, lazy voters avoid their duty.

Around half of the eligible citizenry vote in the first-ever true Iraqi election. It is a major victory - freedom-starved, idealistic voters come out in droves.

??

I think we'll have to wait and see just how true that is. The PNAC crown will never reliquish control of Iraq to someone who is not wiling to crawl into bed with us - regardless of what the Iraqi people may want.

I think the ?? covers my skepticism, but point taken. The article also addresses the issue of registered voters vs. eligible voters which blurs the matter further.

According to what I've read here on DU, at least one election held in the '50s was held in fairly high regard.

No they haven't forgotten them. They're paid to ignore them.

If there are 14 million eligible voters in Iraq, HOW MANY ACTUALLY REGISTERED TO VOTE??

The 8M total that voted are numbers made up by the press, by taking a percentage of total eligible voters, not registered.

Until we have the "registered numbers" we will never know the truth. I could be that there was 50% turnout if 5 out of 10 people voted.

These numbers and percentages mean absolutely nothing. Never mind, taking out the expat #, the people running 11,000 or so, and the 120,000 iraqi national guard/police.

I have called senators to please tell me the number of iraqi's registered and they don't know. Unfnbelievable!!!!1

and Diebold him.

They come in handy when Bush doesn't like an election result.

even if they see the retraction (which is doubtful anyway).

Link to another thread about a study done on exactly this phenomenon...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=103386&mesg_id=103386

and the press acted as if Gore was trying to "steal" the election from him....

How many eligible voters are there in "the country of Iraqi"?

How many of these Iraqi citizens still living in Iraq registered?

How many of them voted? (Stop trying to sham us with ExPats and their numbers.)

How did U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds? (find the money
and stop trying to shift attention to Koffi/UN)

Who outed Valerie Plame and when will they go to jail for treason?

Who looted Social Security? (They should pay it back with Bush's tax breaks for the rich).

Who shut down the media? Maybe we'd like some real journalism for a change. DUH!!!

When will we (the great country of democracy) have fair federal regulated elections? etc., etc.