Ali has posted an incredible piece on the Iraq elections, doing the math for all of the parties and such but makes a very notable observation:

One of my neighbors received his family’s ballot with his father’s name included even though he died a year ago. Under reporting of deaths was not that uncommon but it became more common after the last war as a result of the total collapse of the system for months. Another neighbor had his two sons’ names registered although they both left Iraq since 1995. This means that many Iraqis outside Iraq, regardless whether they voted or not, were considered registered eligible non-voters inside Iraq!

I saw the turn out in our neighborhood which is mainly a Sunni ex-Ba’athist one and I and most my friends thought it was more than 80%, which makes me think that the announced turn out is even much less than the actual one and it’s definitely not just for registered voters, a term that gives the impression that there are Iraqis who did not register, which did not happen as there was no registeration except for very limited cases.

Read the rest of the post. This was the part that stuck out the most to me, though.