'This time, there is no cheating': Election staff tallies votes

With digital counts complete, printed out and on their way through the ether to Baghdad, in one Kirkuk polling centre, manual counting began around 7 pm.

It was still underway at 7.45 local time.

Iraqi High Electoral Commission (IHEC) observer Ghassan Jumal Ahmed, who is back observing the elections after almost a decade, told MEE that a lot has changed over the years in terms of fairness in Iraq's election. 

"This is the second time I have taken the role of an election observer in Kirkuk and there are just so many differences between then and now," he said. "But the main, and most important difference, is that this time, there is no cheating and there is also no pressure put on voters. Back in 2010, there was considerable pressure from parties, even in the election centre itself."

The votes in a Kirkuk polling station are tallied up digitally and then recorded manually. As part of the process, the IHEC in Kirkuk had a "sample room" set up to check the basic accuracy of the electronic vote.

During the count, IHEC staff put to one side any ballot papers with "issues" or unclear results, to study them more closely and compare the manual count with the digital results. The count is then double-checked. 

Middle East Eye's Tom Westcott observed eight spoiled ballots that had to be discarded in the Kirkuk counting room. Most were papers left entirely blank - "statement votes" that were merely consigned to the rubbish. One voter had chosen multiple candidates, another had one had ground the voting pen so hard into the paper it was spoiled. And one person seemed to have misunderstood the basic processes and had pressed their inked thumb onto their chosen candidate's number.

The whole process has been closely observed by IHEC observers, who certainly seem unafraid of voicing their opinions and interrupting if they see anything they don’t feel is being done as it should be. Mostly, these appear to be small matters.

Several TV channels have also recorded the entire digital and manual vote.