Curious numbers -- like US, like Iraq

Back to Iraq does some calculations on the Iraq vote:

Ninevah province, home to the mixed city of Mosul and the besieged city of Tal 'Afar, is seeing some very strange numbers. I've done back of the Excel envelope calculations and have found this:

• In the January election, which was boycotted by Sunnis, there were 165,934 votes cast, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
• In October, according to AP's preliminary results, there were 419,804 votes cast in Ninevah, an increase of 253,870 votes, or +152.99 percent.
• The number of people voting for the constitution in Ninevah, according to the AP, was 326,774 (78 percent), with 90,065 voting against it (21 percent). Less than 1 percent, or 2,965 votes, was disqualified.

By way of comparison, Tamim province, home to the disputed city of Kirkuk, saw 542,000 votes cast -- an increase of 35.2 percent over January -- with 341,611 voting "yes" (63 percent) and 195,725 voting "no" (36 percent). You mean we're supposed to believe that in Tamim, which is also a mixed province but which has had a steady stream of Kurds moving in for the last two-and-a-half years, had more than twice as many no votes as Ninevah? And with the Kurds already pretty much owning Kirkuk? Color me skeptical.

What's truly eyebrow-raising is that the number of constitutional "yes" votes -- 326,774 -- is more than the total increase in votes over January's turnout. That suggests that not only did all of the Sunnis in Ninevah province, who largely boycotted the January elections turn out, but that they all voted for the constitution. That's a very strange idea to me, as I've not met a single Sunni who voted for it here in Baghdad.

See also this article in the Baltimore Sun, one of the best smaller papers in the country.