Status of Preparations for Elections in Iraq

Status of the Out-of-Country Voting Program for Iraqi Citizens in the United States and the Accelerating Pace of Preparations for Elections in Iraq

Ambassador Michael Kozak , Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

Special Briefing Washington, DC January 12, 2005 (2:40 p.m. EST)

MR. ERELI: Hello, everyone. Welcome. Pleased you could join us for what I'm sure will be a very informative briefing with our Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who will talk to us about what the U.S. -- cooperation with the U.S. Government, the Independent Election Commission of Iraq and the International Organization of Management to facilitate Out-of-Country voting in the United States by Iraqis in the elections and then be able to answer, perhaps, hopefully, other questions you might have about the electoral process from a human rights perspective.

Mike, welcome. Thank you

AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thanks, Adam. Thank you. I'm glad to have the opportunity.

I thought I might just briefly describe the different ways in which the U.S. Government is interacting with the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission. As you probably know, this Commission is something that's separate from the executive branch or the legislative or judicial branches in Iraq. Under the Transitional Administrative Law, it was set up as a -- it was kind of like our SEC or something. It's an element of the government, but it's not subordinate to any of the political or judicial branches.

So they have control over the elections. They have been staffed up or receiving technical assistance in this from the United Nations, which has the lead, but also the American NGO, IFES, which is always the International Foundation for Electoral Systems -- I know acronyms better than I do names -- has been working under that UN aegis also in providing technical assistance.

So this is the whole range of things, from helping them write the regulations and write the rules for the elections, setting up the training courses and so on for poll workers and that whole range of activity. And it's been going on for some time. So that's one element in which you've got U.S. involvement but it's in that business of supporting the UN and supporting the Iraqi Election Commission.

Another aspect that we've been working with is that there is a group of electoral officials from a number of different countries led by Canada and Yemen, but where they have a steering committee with, I think, 11 different countries and then officials from a lot of other countries that are going to provide sort of an assessment of the election. The UN doesn't observe elections that itself is running. And if it were in this hemisphere, you'd have the Organization of American States or the Carter Center watching after it. If it were in Europe or Eurasia, you'd have OSCE doing it. But there isn't such a critter in the Middle East area, so this has come together and we've been very supportive of that effort, as well.

And then the final element is this Out-of-Country voting where up until mid-November, I think the initial UN recommendation to the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission had been, don't do overseas voting, it's just a complicated deal and you've got plenty on your plate already. But the Iraqi parties basically came and said, we really want to have this aspect, and the Iraqi Central Election Commission made the decision to do that.

They have made an arrangement with the International Organization for Migration to administer on their behalf, or help them create and administer and assist them to do this. They, after looking at where populations of Iraqis were located, the system they came up with involves having polling places in 14 different countries outside of Iraq. Again, I emphasize, this was not a decision made by the U.S. or that we had any particular part in; it's made by the Iraqis, they are financing this themselves out of their budget and they've contracted with, you know, a worldwide expert, IOM, to do this. IOM had done it in Bosnia, and most recently, in Afghanistan, so they do have some idea of what they're doing.

Where U.S. Government comes in in this in terms of the U.S. part of it; obviously a significant Iraqi population is resident in the United States. I think the first biggest is in Iran and Syria and Jordan and you've got, you know, the immediately neighboring countries. We have got a big chunk, and then there are some in Europe as well. But with each of those countries, IOM, acting on behalf of the Iraqi Commission entered into a memorandum of understanding, and, in our case, we joined with them in that. But our obligation is to facilitate their efforts. We're not the ones making the rules; we're not the ones selecting the sites, but we've facilitated them. In this case, Department of Homeland Security, for example, gave them the U.S. data about where Iraqi residents, as best we can tell, are located around the United States so that they could take that into account in trying to find, you know, the places that would be most convenient to people to be able to vote.

The procedures for voting and, you know, the days and the eligibility, again, all of that is being governed by them. We've been active and the White House has been active in working with, through the intergovernmental liaison with local authorities on issues like security and finding appropriate locales for these voting sites.

I think probably in that -- this is a somewhat unprecedented step. Normally, when countries do overseas elections in the United States or elsewhere, either they do them like we do with the mail, or, a lot of them do it in their embassies and/or their consulate. But here, because Iraq doesn't really -- they had not had very many embassies or consulates when the change of regime occurred, and, I guess, don't even have some in some of these places, they decided to go and just set up sites for those specific days that IOM is arranging. But our job has been facilitation, helping them get in touch with the right people to do security, giving them data and that type of thing.

On the details of, you know, who can vote, what the dates are, and that kind of thing, I'd refer you to the International Organization for Migration. They've got a website called -- what is it -- www.iraq.ocv -- for Out-of-Country voting -- .org.

MS. JOHNSTONE: No dot. It's iraqocv.org.

AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yeah, iraqocv.org. I put one too many dots in there. Okay. And then they have a hotline as well that's listed there where people can call in to explain their own situation and get information.

But that's sort of the parameters of that part. I think it's an important step that they're taking. We were just talking. There are 14 million estimated voters in Iraq and they're estimating somewhere around a million in the exterior that are -- you know, it's always hard to tell who's going to turn up or who will claim eligibility, but potentially a million people that are in these other countries, including the United States.

So with that, maybe I'll go to questions. Status of the Out-of-Country Voting Program for Iraqi Citizens in the United States and the Accelerating Pace of Preparations for Elections in Iraq FULL TEXT