Of secondary concern, but largely overlooked in the media coverage, are procedural and administrative challenges we know from our own experiences here and around the world can call the legitimacy of an election into serious question.

Undoubtedly, these sorts of issues are far more difficult to address in Iraq than virtually any other place in the world. At the same time, most of the Iraqi people want democratic self-governance through free and fair elections. The question is whether holding the election on this particular Sunday, when the situation is so dangerous and uncertain, is actually going to bring the Iraqis what they want and deserve.

One major administrative problem is the confusing nature of the ballot, a serious matter where there is a population unfamiliar with voting. There are a total of 19,000 national and regional candidates on the ballot, but voters are voting for a party not candidates. According to USA Today, since each of the 111 slates for National Assembly has at least 12 members, and there will also be regional governing board elections, there are at least 250 parties or coalitions on the ballot. Moreover, many of the slates have similar names or symbols, making it hard to tell them apart. Voters will receive two or three ballots (depending on their area); the ballot sheets are huge—3 feet long by 2 feet wide. The voter will mark at most one box on each sheet.

As a result of the violence surrounding the elections, many Iraqis have no idea where they are to vote, how to vote, or who or what they are voting for anyway. Due to the dangerous conditions, the location of some polling sites will be kept secret until the last minute. Moreover, according to USA Today, "In a poll conducted in late November and early December, only 29 percent of Iraqis answered correctly that on Jan. 30 they would choose a 275-seat National Assembly that will draft a constitution and appoint an interim government. A plurality of 41.5 percent said they were voting for president...Most names of the 7,000 candidates on the national election slates are secret. Because of the insurgency, the election commission has let the slates keep their members' identities veiled so they won't be targeted."

Meanwhile, the valiant poll workers administering and overseeing all of this are likely to be understaffed and insufficiently trained—as of last week, an estimated 150,000 poll workers were needed to run the election, but only 6,000 had been trained. And in addition to helping voters, poll workers will also be busy trying to stay alive. Several Iraqi election workers have already been killed simply for being involved in the effort. And although identification requirements exist in elections in many countries around the world, those in effect in the Iraqi election may prove onerous. Iraqis must have 2 original copies of official ID to vote and one of them must be a picture ID.

There is also the matter of the basis for the voter rolls, the list of Iraqis receiving food rations. This was never a full list of all potentially eligible voters and, according to the New York Times, the voter list is still not finalized. "Citizens may challenge particular entries and ask that others be added. The final changes will be made by hand after district officials rule on each dispute." How accurate will these lists be? And what will happen if an Iraqi shows up to vote on election day and finds his or her name not on the list?

Finally, unlike any other election in an emerging democracy in the last two decades, there will be no international monitors of the election. The entities that usually undertake such missions—the European Union, the National Democratic Institute, the Carter Center—will not be sending monitors into Iraq, and other countries say it is too dangerous to do so. This not only allows for the real potential for actual fraud and voter intimidation; it almost guarantees that the outcome will be questioned by some, and there will be no independent authority to reconcile the conflict. There will be domestic monitors, but if there are serious questions raised, it is uncertain that such Iraqi monitors will be perceived as neutral arbiters.

Foreign observers have become a stalwart of any controversial election—even including the 2004 American election. As the Washington Post points out, "When 1 million Palestinians voted for a successor to Yasser Arafat, 800 international observers poured into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to monitor the polling...When 8 million Afghans voted in October, at least 122 international observers from across Europe and Asia monitored the presidential election... But in Iraq, where 14 million people are eligible to vote, the elections next week may have only one outsider from the hastily organized International Mission for Iraqi Elections to evaluate the balloting."

Ironically, in a few select ways the U.S. is doing more to make this election effective than it does American elections. In addition to spending a great deal of money on the Iraqi elections, the United States is sponsoring a huge get-out-the-vote advertising campaign, on television, in newspapers and on billboards. Moreover, while election reformers have called for U.S. elections to be held on the weekends or a holiday, the election in Iraq will in fact be held on a Sunday. In addition, Iraqis in two of the country's most troubled provinces will be permitted to register and vote on the day of elections, in the hope that it will increase voter turnout—something it has proven to do in the six American states that allow this same procedure. Finally, Iraqis are getting something American campaign reformers have been advocating for years—free air time. The U.S.-backed channel Al-Iraqiya is obliged by Iraqi Election Commission rules to provide all parties two to three minutes of free and equal airtime.

The democratic process, especially in the beginning, is often a highly flawed experiment. The conditions in Iraq are unlikely to dramatically improve anytime soon. Nonetheless, as we assess whether the U.S. is truly fulfilling its stated mission of bringing Iraq and the rest of the world democracy, we must wonder if this first foray will set the best example.

Tova Andrea Wang is a senior program officer and Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation.

For a comparison of the elections in Iraq with the recent election in Afghanistan, see Iraqi Elections: Does the Afghan Example Give Reason for Optimism? in this week's Afghanistan Watch.