Canada's election chief will oversee Iraqi vote results

[Boswells_Johnson]

Soon after polls close in Iraq tomorrow, Jean-Pierre Kingsley will release a preliminary assessment of the electoral process.

Canada's chief electoral officer will be preparing the evaluation not from violence-plagued Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, but from Amman, the capital of Jordan, some 1,000 kilometres to the east.

His remoteness and the lack of a large, neutral, international oversight presence in Iraq to assess the vote's credibility has led some election experts to question the underlying validity of Mr. Kingsley's findings.

....

Before he left for Amman, Mr. Kingsley said that lack of security precluded having international observers at polling stations throughout Iraq.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050129/IRAQKINGSLEY29/TPInternational/Africa

[geomon666]

1. So what's the damn point then?

If you can't be in the country to monitor the vote then how the hell can you ever consider it a proper, fraud proof vote? Go back to Canada Mr. Kingsley. You're wasting your time and theirs.

[Boswells_Johnson]

2. The entire election is a farce n/t

[Spazito]

3. Wow, with that kind of criteria....

I am in Canada but, as in the chief electoral officer's proximity to the US election, I have evaluated that the US election was fraudulent. What a ridiculous situation re the supposition by Mr. Kingsley that he can evaluate squat from Jordan.

[daleo]

4. It's a joke

He shouldn't have got co opted into this, but I suppose it was one of the bones that P.M. Martin threw to Bush during the visit last month.