Iraqis Say Final Results Could Take Awhile

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Preliminary results from Iraq's historic election could come as early as Monday, Iraqi officials said Sunday. But final results and an accurate estimate of turnout could take up to 10 days. Election workers began counting the ballots at polling centers Sunday night after polls had closed, and they were expected to continue throughout the night, officials said. Figures will then be transmitted to a central clearing house in Baghdad, and only then compiled and later released. Confusion over turnout was widespread Sunday, after the Iraqi electoral commission first announced a whopping 72 percent voter turnout. But they then acknowledged the figure was based only on guesses, and officials quickly backtracked. "These figures are only very rough, word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally from the field," the commission said in a statement late Sunday. However, the commission said it did believe, based on that anecdotal information, that turnout had exceeded expectations around the country. The commission had estimated before the vote that about 8 million people -- or about 57 percent of the country's 14 million eligible voters -- would cast ballots. The issue of turnout -- especially among the country's Sunni Arab minority -- is highly sensitive. Insurgents and some hardline clerics had called on Sunnis to stay away from the polls, and low Sunni participation could be seen as a victory for the rebels. The report of 72 percent turnout came from Adel al-Lami, an official with the Independent Elections Committee. He told reporters the figure at mid-day as reports of brisk voting started trickling in. But when journalists questioned him further about the figure, he and other Iraqi officials quickly backed off. The top U.N. adviser to the Iraqi election commission, Carlos Valenzuela, said the turnout estimate had been based on nothing more than anecdotal information, or "impressionistic approximations." Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said the initial estimate was based on polling station estimates of voter flow and line lengths, not on actual voting numbers. Coming up with numbers for the two Sunni provinces where turnout was thought low -- Anbar and Ninevah -- might require considerable time because some residents there probably voted outside their provinces, election officials said. For instance, three voting centers in Baghdad were set up for people from Anbar who had been displaced by the November U.S. assault on the city of Fallujah. Voters in the different provinces were not asked when they voted whether they were Sunnis or Shiites, so an estimate of Sunni turnout alone might be hard to reach, officials said. The United Nations is unlikely to come up with its own turnout numbers or evaluate those of the commission, one U.N. official said