gender confusion in iraq

once again baghdad blogger riverbend draws my attention to something that hasn't been reported here. the new iraqi provisional government-issued voter registration cards, for some reason, identify all voters--men and women--as male:

Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

when a full half of qualified voters are misidentified right from the get-go the prospects of having a transparent free-from-fraud election is not looking all that good. especially considering that the election observers, who will determine whether the voting will be deemed free and fair, will "observe" the voting from outside iraq.