I came for the waters. I was misinformed.

[sisyphusshrugged]

Today's Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award goes to the New York Times, who refers to Mr. Rumsfeld's casual acceptance of voter suppression in Iraq as "curiously undemocratic"

Apparently the Times hasn't been following the political situation in this country very closely. Offhand, given the situation in Florida and Louisiana and Texas and Baltimore and South Dakota and the Michigan Republican who wants to suppress the vote in Detroit and the Justice Department investigation of Democratic voter registration, I'd say Mr. Rumsfeld's attitude is SOP.

I won't ask them to strain themselves by remembering how Mr. Rumsfeld got his office to begin with.

Unfortunately for Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Allawi, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani (the moderate cleric whose qualified acceptance of our presence in Iraq has made life much less difficult for us) is not nearly so resigned to an eventual elected government representing only certain Iraqis

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the nation's most powerful Shiite leader, is growing increasingly concerned that nationwide elections could be delayed, his aides said, and has even threatened to withdraw his support for the elections unless changes are made to increase the representation of Shiites, according to one Iraqi source close to him.

Aides to Ayatollah Sistani contacted Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria, the United Nations adviser who brokered the agreement to hold the elections, planned for January, to express concern that they would be delayed, according to Hamid Khaffaf, one of Ayatollah Sistani's top aides.

Another source close to the electoral negotiations said Ayatollah Sistani had asked Mr. Brahimi to return to Iraq to try to address his concerns. Mr. Khaffaf declined to discuss details of the conversation.

In New York, Mr. Brahimi's aides said only that he had not spoken recently to Ayatollah Sistani. The United Nations special representative to Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi of Pakistan, could not be reached for comment.

According to people with knowledge of the talks, Ayatollah Sistani is concerned that the nascent democratic process here is falling under the control of a handful of the largest political parties, which cooperated with the American occupation and are comprised largely of exiles.

In particular, these sources say, Ayatollah Sistani is worried about discussions now under way among those parties to form a single ticket for the elections, thus limiting the choices of voters and smothering smaller political parties.

Ayatollah Sistani, who earlier this year sent tens of thousands of Iraqis into the streets to demand early elections, is said to be worried that a "consensus list" of candidates from the larger political parties would artificially limit the power of the Shiites, who form a majority in the country.

Under an agreement reached among exile groups in the early 1990's, the Shiites were said to make up about 55 percent of the population. Ayatollah Sistani, the sources say, believes the Shiite population has swelled since then and therefore would be underrepresented on any list based on a 55 percent figure.

Ayatollah Sistani also expressed concerns that the Iraqi government, possibly under American pressure, would postpone the elections on the pretext that the anarchical conditions that prevail over parts of the country would make the results illegitimate, the sources said.

According to an Iraqi close to Ayatollah Sistani who spoke at length with him last weekend, the ayatollah is so upset about the prospect that the Shiites might be underrepresented that he is prepared to withdraw his support for the elections if his concerns are not addressed. It is unclear, however, what specific demands he has made.

"If he sees that what this is leading to is unfair and unfree elections, then he will not take part in it,'' the Iraqi said. "He will declare the elections to be illegitimate."

Some folks here at home seem to have similar concerns

A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.

The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.

While comparable data could not be obtained for other swing states, similar registration drives have been mounted in them as well, and party officials on both sides say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide. This largely hidden but deadly earnest battle is widely believed by campaign professionals and political scientists to be potentially decisive in the presidential election.

"We know it's going on, and it's a very encouraging sign," said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. The new voters, Mr. Elmendorf said, "could very much be the difference."

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Christine Iverson, declined to comment on The Times's findings and said she did not believe Republicans were lagging in the registration battle. "We're very confident that we have a ground game that's as good as the Democrats', and better," she said.

The precise impact of the swell in registration is difficult to predict, as there is no reliable gauge of how many of these new voters will actually vote. Some experts, though, say that the spike has not been accurately captured by political polls and could confound prognostications in closely contested states.

That this is all a dark and confusing mystery to the Times editorial board is unsurprising, when you consider that their ombudsman chose to check the comprehensiveness of their coverage by only reading the Times (he emerged with a comforting report pointing out that everything that was covered by the Times was in fact covered by the Times).

Go new voters (ours and theirs).