There’s been some buzz created with regards to the auditing of votes in Iraq due to ‘unusually high turnout.’ In fact, it was the top story on Google News the other day, though I’m not really sure why, given that the biggest effect it will have is delaying the results only a couple of days. Here’s the basic rundown:

Iraqi election officials say it is too early to suspect problems during Saturday’s constitutional referendum, as workers continue to review ballots.

Officials say workers are still auditing results for about 12 Shi’ite and Kurdish areas which reported unusually high totals of “yes” votes. Those regions were expected to support the constitution.

Election officials say a final vote count may be ready by Friday or Saturday.

At least one predominantly Sunni Arab province, Salaheddin, appeared to have voted against the constitution. The draft will fail if three provinces vote against it.

Some Sunni Arab leaders have alleged fraud in Saturday’s vote.

Now, for those worrying how this will affect whether or not the constitution will pass, don’t worry, it won’t. The audit is taking place in mainly Shiite and Kurdish regions, and international election standards dictate that such an audit must be carried out in areas where turnout is high comparatively speaking. The UN and other international election monitors have already certified the integrity of conduct at polling stations during and after ballots were cast.

That’s not to say that isolated irregularities are impossible. For example, during the January election, 100,000 Christians in Mosul didn’t have the ability to vote because election supplies never made it to them. In the event of such irregularities, the Central Election Commission takes complaints, investigates each instance, and does what it can to fix the problem. This will be taking place over the next several days.

Others are speculating whether losing the referendum will place the Sunnis to say, “See, we failed, so participating in this system will never work for us,” and the evidence for that is a limited number of Sunni politicians denouncing the referendum as a sham. But truth be told, most Sunni Arabs and the leadership in particular realize that the only way they’ll be able to secure their position in the country now is to participate heavily in the December parliamentary election. It is therefore unlikely that the Sunni Arabs will self-inflict a masochistic isolation upon themselves again.