[JURIST] Late reports out of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul [Wikipedia profile] Sunday say that the poll there, although it drew more voters than expected, was burdened by glaring irregularities, perhaps not surprising in view of the fact that the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq [official website] had to send a quickly-trained replacement team to the city after local election workers resigned en masse earlier this month citing security concerns. Kurdish and Christian politicians have complained about a lack of ballots that caused rioting in one location; election workers are also said to have provided too much help to voters, in several instances suggesting who should they vote for. AFP has more.

In other Iraq election news, one late-posting Iraqi blogger critical of the vote is questioning even the lower "corrected" estimates of Iraqi voter turnout [JURIST report], claiming that the figures being cited by IECI officials are percentages of registered voters, not eligible voters, and suggesting that the combined totals of out-of-country and in-country voters who went to the polls may turn out to have been less than 50% of those eligible [weblog post].

[JURIST] The Canadian-based International Mission for Iraqi Elections [official website], a multinational group of election experts set up in December to monitor the January 30 vote and make recommendations for improvements in the Iraqi electoral process, issued a preliminary report from its offices in Amman, Jordan, on Sunday praising the poll but stressing a need for greater transparency in campaign financing and expenditures, improvements in voter registration, and a review of campiagn eligibility standards. Assessing the legal framework for the election, the report noted:

The absence of deadlines for resolutions on claims and complaints by the electoral authorities, notification to political entities and candidates of decisions on certification, announcement of preliminary electoral results and publication of official results is a matter that the IMIE will wish to discuss with the IECI [Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq], as is the question of regulating political financing and transparency in this respect.

[JURIST] Another former Guantanamo Bay prisoner has come forward with allegations of torture and abuse by US personnel. Sunday's UK Independent newspaper has disclosed that British national Moazzam Begg [Cageprisoners.com profile], one of four Britons released from the facility last week [JURIST report], wrote a 25-page report of his imprisonment that includes allegations of torture, repeated assault, and near-suffocation. The report, written by Begg while in solitary confinement, also claims that his captors threatened his family, killed other prisoners, and interrogated him more than 250 times. Begg, who ran an Islamic bookstore in England, was captured in Pakistan by US forces in 2002, at which point he says he was taken to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, where he allegedly was badly beaten and nearly suffocated while being interrogated. Begg also claims that he was coerced into signing a confession in February 2003 that said he is a member of al-Qaida, and further alleges that tactics including sleep deprivation, threats of execution, beatings, and racial or religious taunts were commonly employed by American interrogators to extract confessions. The released prisoners have not been charged with acts of terrorism, but the have been said to remain a "significant threat" and may be held under bail-style restrictions or house arrest under new emergency anti-terrorism powers being sought by British Home Secretary Charles Clarke. Britain's The Independent has more. Read a previous Paper Chase report on Begg's allegations of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of his American captors, first made in a letter to American authorities in July.

[JURIST] The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq has backtracked on a widely-reported estimate by one of its officials earlier Sunday who had suggested that some 72% of Iraqis eligible to vote had gone to the polls. In a cautionary statement the IECI said:

Turnout figures recently announced represent the enormous and understandable enthusiasm felt in the field on this historic day... However, these figures are only very rough, word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some time for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq to issue accurate figures on turnout.

[JURIST] The president of Germany's Constitutional Court [official website] said Sunday that despite the failure of past government efforts, the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD) [party website] could still be banned under German law, renewing interest in outlawing the controversial group. Using procedural grounds, the Constitutional Court overturned the government's attempt to ban NPD in 2003, but German law allows for a ban of any group or political party deemed to be dangerous due to its support of Nazism. The party has flourished in some parts of Germany, and recently NPD members of Parliament refused to take part in a moment of silence for the victims of the Holocaust during its recognition of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Germany has laws forbidding the preaching of racial hatred and denying the Holocaust. Nazi symbols are also outlawed in Germany, and German politicians recently asked the European Union to adopt the ban [JURIST report]. From Germany, Deutsche Welle has more. DW also reports on the NPD's "belittling" of the Holocaust. Der Spiegel reports on the response of Germany's other political parties to the NPD's recent actions. CNN details the Constitutional Court ruling that ended the attempt to ban the NPD in 2003. BBC reports that violence erupted at an NPD rally on Saturday when protestors clashed with police.

[JURIST] Iraqi voters turned out in their millions Sunday, braving threats of a bloodbath at the polls to cast their ballots in the first democratic elections in the country in more than half a century. One official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq [official website] estimated a nationwide turnout of over 72% of eligible voters, and other observers noted higher-than-expected turnouts in trouble spots like Fallujah and Mosul despite especially slow starts there. From Baghdad, one Iraqi described his voting experience [weblog post]; another told how he had cast his ballot [weblog post]. No breakdown of Shia, Sunni and Kurd participation has as yet been provided, and it is unclear whether a threatened Sunni boycott [AFP report] of the polls materialized. There was violence however, with some 36 people killed by midday in suicide bombings and attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere. Baghdad-based American freelancer Christopher Allbriton reported on a number of early attacks [weblog post] in his vicinity.

Preliminary results of the Iraqi poll may be known as early as tonight, but full final results may not be available for a week to ten days. Out-of-country voting [Iraq OCV official website] is continuing today as well. AP offers this report; Reuters has more; BBC News offers a video report.

9:02 AM ET - The polls have now closed in Iraq, although election commission officials say according to AP that anyone still in line will be allowed to vote.

11:03 AM ET - The International Organization for Migration, the body responsible for co-ordinating the Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program, said Sunday that 2/3 of expatriate Iraqis who had registered had voted on the first two days of out-of-country polling. View the latest Iraq OCV Program TV ad in English [MP3]. VOA has more. Some observers expect that the high turnout in Iraq may stimulate high turnout abroad on the last day of the OCV vote. Meanwhile, as evening progresses in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country, more Iraq-based English-speaking webloggers are posting generally-triumphal personal accounts of their visits to the polls [weblog post] earlier today.

12:59 PM ET - Iraq webloggers have filed additional reports on voting in Baghdad and Mosul, noting increased turnout in the latter towards the end of the day. In a blog report from Najaf, a local human rights official has claimed [audio interview in Arabic] that the provincial governor breached Iraq's electoral law by using government resources to promote his own party list, although electoral officials did nothing to stop him. A late report by an engineering student in Baghdad who did not vote and who had previously derided the election as "theatre" has meanwhile cast doubt on the 72% turnout figure [weblog post] cited earlier by an Iraqi election official, noting he based the estimation on nothing more scientific than local polling center chiefs' estimates of the "the length of the line of the voters as he saw it."

1:15 PM ET - In a brief televised statement [official text] from the White House, President Bush has congratulated Iraqis and called the election "the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East." The State Department has posted photos of Iraqi voters and voting provided by the US Embassy in Baghdad [official website].