The Independent High Election Commission, a body that long ago lost its independence and is now staffed by apparatchiks from the major parties, contracted with a mysterious and little-known Korean company to provide ballot boxes that scan votes and uplink them to a central database upon the closure of polls. That Korean company had little track record, has little behind it but a webpage, and the single international election Iraqis say it previously managed in Kyrgyzstan ended in disaster.The company provides no photos of its operations in Kyrgyzstan, leading to further questions about whether its claims of operations there are true. There is also a question why the IHEC contracted with a company office in Poland and signed the contract in Turkey if Miro System is truly is based in South Korea beyond simply a name on a registry absent an address.

The alleged problems get worse. Iraqi leaders also say a preliminary audit by the United Nations of the elections management system, the data archive system, and the survey/statistical system had failed. Nevertheless, the IHEC went forward. On election day, some candidates say the receipts produced by the boxes did not match figures uploaded to the central count, and some candidates say some boxes returned zero votes for themselves when they were where the candidates themselves voted. Nor do the USB serial numbers from the boxes necessarily always match.