Caller on C-SPAN cites election problems in Iraq

[Ian David]

The caller said they read the following information on Riverbend.org

I just tried to go to that site, but it appears there is no such blog as Riverbend.org, but I think he is talking about:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Problems with the Iraqi election:

All the ballots are marked as "male", to discourage women from voting.

Iranians are buying ballots from Iraqis for $400 each.

And the Christian Science Monitor says nobody knows who is running for office in Iraq yet. They won't list the names of the candidates, because the candidates would be assassinated.

I've never heard of Riverbend before.

They don't cite any original sources.

Does anyone know if they are credible?

From Riverbend:

Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

All of this has given the coming elections a sort of sinister cloak. There is too much mystery involved and too little transparency. It is more than a little bit worrisome.