Omröstningen i Irak visar märkliga siffror

BBC rapporterade nyss att Irakiska myndigheter inte kommer att tillkännage ett resultat av omröstningen om den nya konstitutionen i Irak innan man har kollat upp vissa statistiskt extraordinära siffror. Via Today in Iraq hittade jag följande artikel på Back to Iraq:

BAGHDAD — Ninevah province, home to the mixed city of Mosul and the besieged city of Tal ‘Afar, is seeing some very strange numbers. I’ve done back of the Excel envelope calculations and have found this:

* In the January election, which was boycotted by Sunnis, there were 165,934 votes cast, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
* In October, according to AP’s preliminary results, there were 419,804 votes cast in Ninevah, an increase of 253,870 votes, or +152.99 percent.
* The number of people voting for the constitution in Ninevah, according to the AP, was 326,774 (78 percent), with 90,065 voting against it (21 percent). Less than 1 percent, or 2,965 votes, was disqualified.

By way of comparison, Tamim province, home to the disputed city of Kirkuk, saw 542,000 votes cast — an increase of 35.2 percent over January — with 341,611 voting “yes” (63 percent) and 195,725 voting “no” (36 percent). You mean we’re supposed to believe that in Tamim, which is also a mixed province but which has had a steady stream of Kurds moving in for the last two-and-a-half years, had more than twice as many no votes as Ninevah? And with the Kurds already pretty much owning Kirkuk? Color me skeptical.

Juan Cole har också en hel del info om omröstningen.