14 million voter registration came from food ration databases

[SoCalDem]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4654

snip..

Although results are not in, and won't be for at least 24 hours, preliminary figures indicate a turnout of anywhere from half to 60 percent of registered voters, especially heavy in Shi'ite and Kurdish regions. The voter registration list consisted of nearly 14 million names in the food-ration public-distribution database, and the implication that if you didn't vote you didn't get your ration card renewed was less than subtle. As Khalid, a young Iraqi blogger, related: http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

"The way the voting happened, is that you go to the voting center, and you go to the man that is your ration dealer, the one that you take the ration from him every month, so you tell him that you are gonna vote, he marks your name on his list, and then you vote!!!
that way the goverment will know exactly who voted and who didnt, two dealers said that the next years' card won't be given to those who didnt vote.."

That so many registered voters didn't show up at the polls, in spite of this sort of intimidation, should tell us something about the depth of the split that sunders Iraqi society. The nonvoters – in this context, the complete rejectionists – polled more than any single party. This result should dampen the oddly artificial triumphalism of the moment and let us give thought to what this election portends.

The high turnout in Shi'ite areas puts the Sistani-blessed United Iraqi Alliance in the lead and ensures the influence of minorities such as the Kurdish groups and the Iraqi Communist Party will be disproportionately felt in the National Assembly. I have seen polls that give Allawi's party as little as under 10 percent of the vote, and in any case Iraqis seem to blame him for the current mess. Part of the reason for his declining popularity is because Iraqis identify him with the occupation – perhaps because he was flown around in an American military aircraft on the campaign trail. I wouldn't be surprised if Allawi is marginalized by these elections and the U.S. puts its chips on their old partner-in-crime, Ahmed Chalabi. American officials are already starting to "reach out" to Chalabi, as New York Times reporter Judith Miller put it on MSNBC's Hardball, offering him all sorts of plum positions in the new Iraqi Cabinet.


snip

[orpupilofnature57]

1. The true hunger for Democracy?

[Ruffhowse]

2. Whatever happens, you can bet the US will make sure the power rests

in the hands of those who will "play ball" with US corporate interests in the region. That's what this war is all about.

[rfranklin]

4. Wait! Don't forget the efforts to speed up the Rapture!

Creating chaos and conflict in the Middle East is a prime objective of the religiously insane amongst us.

[roenyc]

3. Riverbend reported this in her blog back january 2nd.

From baghadad burning blog January 2, 2005.http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

snip

Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

[rodeodance]

5. NONE of this makes it into the msm news!!

[ClintonTyree]

7. It wasn't on the "Official White House" memo that was...............

distributed days before the election by KKKarl Rove! You can't expect News organizations to check these things out, that would be so........pre 9/11! If it wasn't included in the official packet from the White House, it doesn't get reported.

[TR Fan]

13. Well, actually the process of using the food rationing roles

as a basis for voter registration was in the MSM quite a while ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41044-2005Jan1.html

[displacedtexan]

6. And the Nazis gave starving Jews bread and jam...

if they got in the transport trucks.

Plus ça change...

[pnorman]

8. I needed a more "respectable" source for that Voter Registration item.

Here's what I managed to Google:

>
>
A voter registration list of 14.3 million names has been completed. The voter registration process consisted of validating and adding names, and correcting inform ation on the provisional voter registration list, which was based on the food ration public distribution database. Iraqis had six weeks to complete this process.
>
>
http://www.army.com/news/fact_sheet.pdf

It just hit me: all during our own election campaign, this DU community was relentlessly pursuing all known facts and indicators, and discussing, criticising, and even discarding those that didn't make the cut. By Election Day, we (well, almost all) were supremely confident of the outcome. We were SANDBAGGED, although the details of the FRAUD are just beginning to emerge.

Likewise with this stalinoid "election", although it was closer to the sort of plebiscites so favored by Hitler. Whether or not some here were rooting for it to succeed or fail is really irrelevant. The greater part of the discussion here at DU was well-founded and well-reasoned. Realistically, this means "victory" for Dubya, but ONLY by redefining it to an absurd definition of 'victory". Nonetheless, it will be spun into Pure Gold by a supine media. (The dramatic increase of supinity in the past several months, also demands close scrutiny).

What we're looking at is the GREATEST triumph of "perception management" over reality, ever seen on the face of this earth. Orwell's "1984" will be of little use here; far more to the point will be (among a few others) Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent".
Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0375714499/ref=dp_item-information_0/102-5401116-6692946?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
Here's the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B00005Y726/ref=cm_rev_all_1/102-5401116-6692946?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=dvd

pnorman

[SoCalDem]

9. If , in fact, 60% voted, that means 40% will lose their rations

and there was also a report on CNN last night that said that "people who had fled their own towns" were being allowed to vote anywhere. So the registration format must have left a lot to be desired. Do they really even know who voted? Do they care??

Nope.. They have those pictures of a few people "dancing in the streets" and that's enough for our media..

remember the "Ay-rabs burning the flag and dancing" after 9/11?? Same thing.. and the "toppling of Saddam's statue"?? It's all about the perception...not the facts... we will NEVER know the facts..

[TR Fan]

12. In point of fact,

there were "Arabs" dancing in the streets in Palestine when news of 9/11 was disseminated. CNN had the pictures up for a short while and subsequently removed them.

[SoCalDem]

15. The "footage" they used was actually OLD footage

but I am sure that some did not shed too many tears over our misfortune.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SoCalDem]

11. expand your ideas please

:hi:

[hector459]

14. Anybody sent this to Wolf Blitzer yet?

Haven't heard this mentioned on any of the cable stations.