Depends on What You Know

Via One Hand Clapping comes this comparison of the January constitutional election and the just-passed October constitutional election:

Voters and polling comparisons

Registered voters – January: 14.3 million; October 15.6 million.

Numbers of polling centers – January: 5,677; October 5,852 with most of the new centers going to Sunni regions.

===Al Anbar polling centers increased from 33 in Jan. to 171 in Oct. (indications are that more than 200,000 additional people voted in Anbar)

Nineveh polling centers increased from 88 in Jan. to 230 in Oct. (nearly 400,000 more voted this time)===

Poll worker applications – January: 110,000; October 450,000.

Total poll workers – January: 108,000; October 171,000. Early projections are that more than 60 percent of those registered voted.

Voting Rights Changes Since January

Iraqi Security Forces guarding polling stations outside their provinces were allowed to vote.

U.S.-held detainees that had not been convicted of a crime were allowed to vote.

Election Security

Total attacks in Iraq – Jan. 30: 299 attacks; Oct. 15: 89 attacks

Total attacks against polling places – Jan. 30: 108 attacks; Oct. 15: 19 attacks

Number of civilians killed – Jan. 30: 30 deaths; Oct. 15: three deaths. Overall there were 34 deaths on Jan. 30 and 10 deaths on Oct. 15.

Total number of suicide bombers – Jan. 30: seven; Oct. 15: zero.

Security Forces

Ministry of Interior Forces – January: 79,116l October: 106, 112

Ministry of Defense Forces – January: 56, 949; October 93, 959

Logistics

MNF-I moved most of the materials in Jan; Iraqi contractors conducted most of the movement and logistics in October.

Voting supplies were moved into warehouses three days earlier than in January with no shortages of supplies reported.

From information released by US Central Command

Sounds both like success and progress, wouldn't you say?