In some areas, residents have been threatened with death if they vote. Allawi said earlier this week that some areas probably would be too unsafe to participate in the elections, but he promised to increase the size of the army in the face of the bloody insurgency. Allawi also spoke by telephone with U.S. President George W. Bush to reaffirm the importance of holding the elections as scheduled, the White House said. There are a total of 15.2 million eligible Iraqi voters, of whom 1.2 million are abroad. Those abroad will vote in 14 countries, including the United States, Iran, Syria, Britain and Sweden. Hendawi, the head of the electoral commission, said voter registration has been carried out in a "normal fashion" in 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces. The two troubled regions are Ninevah and Anbar, where the 20-month-old Sunni Muslim insurgency is fiercest. He said voters in the two provinces, which include trouble hotspots such as Mosul, will be allowed to register and vote on the same day, but will not be permitted to cast their ballots outside their respective provinces. Polling stations will open at 7 a.m. and close at 5 p.m., local time, but the final results will not be announced until 7-10 days later. First results could be available on the day of the vote, he added. In another nod to security concerns, the vote counting will take place at the polling stations, he said. A national holiday will be announced to coincide with the election, but Abdel-Latif said details would be announced later by the prime minister's office. Hendawi was noncommittal when asked about reports that Israelis of Iraqi origin would be allowed to vote. "The commission grants the right to vote to every Iraqi without discrimination based on nationality or religion. Everyone who has Iraqi citizenship and is of voting age, which is 18, can vote if he can prove that," he said, in the first public comments by an electoral official on the thorny issue. Iraq was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Arab world until the 1940s and 1950s, when it stripped them of their citizenship and expelled them. Many settled in Israel. Sarah Tosh of the Jordan-based Out-of-Country Voting Program has said Israelis of Iraqi descent need two documents proving their heritage to register. The program is organizing the vote for Iraqi expatriates in the 14 countries, which do not include Israel. Absentee ballots are not permitted. -Hamza Hedawi.

Waves of elected officials resign over alleged irregularities in Palestinian election

RAMALLAH, West Bank- Forty-six members of the Palestinian election commission, including top managers, resigned Saturday, saying they were pressured by Mahmoud Abbas' campaign and intelligence officials to abruptly change voting procedures during the Jan. 9 presidential poll. Two senior members of the commission, Ammar Dwaik and Baha al-Bakri, resigned early Saturday, and officials later said 44 more members resigned. Six top election officials were among those who resigned. The resignations raised questions about Sunday's vote giving Abbas an overwhelming victory with 62.3 per cent, though the officials who quit said the alleged irregularities did not fundamentally affect the final vote tally. "This proves that what happened is very serious and it must not happen again," said Dwaik, the commission's deputy chairman. "These pressures and threats lessened the degree of the integrity of the election, even though overall it was free and fair." Abbas was sworn in as Palestinian Authority president Saturday.