BAGHDAD (AFP) -– The UN special envoy to Iraq and local election commissioners on Sunday unveiled new measures designed to prevent fraud during provincial elections set for the end of January.

""These elections are not only about politics, they are about everyday life, electricity, water, sanitation, human rights, employment,"" UN envoy Staffan De Mistura told reporters at a Baghdad press conference.
""We are aware that some entities, some people, may be tempted to disrupt the elections. But we are also very much aware about the level of preparation and planning which is unprecedented in Iraq.""
The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq will be assisting Iraq's Independent High Election Commission in holding elections on January 31 in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces -- the first vote in the country since 2005.
To date the UN mission has trained some 40,000 election observers in Iraq and the Washington-based National Democratic Institute has trained an additional 20,000 monitors. Officials hope to deploy 200,000 on election day.
In contrast to previous elections voters will be registered in their own polling stations instead of regional centres, which election officials said would make it more difficult for people to vote more than once.
""When the commission studied some of the past violations it found that most of them happened through processes of repeat voting,"" chief electoral officer Qassim Sachhit said.
""This was because the registration of voters happened at the level of the voting centres, each of which included five or six polling stations.""
The commission has also decided to have school teachers staff the polling stations in a bid to keep out political activists.
De Mistura said officials would also be implementing a number of ""high technological approaches"" to prevent fraud, but declined to elaborate for fear of undermining their effectiveness.
""When you make money you don't explain exactly how you forge it,"" he said.
The law governing the elections gives the commission enhanced powers to sanction those who break the rules, including the ability to strip away votes cast in stations where fraud has been committed.
More than 17 million people have registered to vote and officials said that Sunni regions -- which had mostly boycotted the last elections in December 2005 -- were showing especially high levels of interest.
""The provinces that boycotted the last provincial elections are the most eager to participate in these elections,"" Faraj al-Haydari, chairman of the board of commissioners, told AFP.
""There are a lot of political entities and a lot of funding, especially in Anbar, Salaheddin and Diyala provinces,"" he said.
The mostly Sunni provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin largely boycotted the 2005 provincial elections, and the mixed province of Diyala north of Baghdad has long been one of the deadliest regions of the country.
In the last elections, religious parties won all the seats in the councils, with the exception of the three autonomous Kurdish provinces and the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk, none of which will be voting in January.
But according to a survey published earlier this month by an Iraqi NGO, the Al-Amal Association, only 22.7 percent of 12,000 people polled in 11 provinces said they will vote for religious parties or blocs.
Voting for independent candidates is deemed a priority for 26.3 percent of the surveyed public of 11,000 Iraqis, while 23.7 percent said they will select democratic and secular blocs.