Posted on 01/28/2005 5:01:50 AM PST by Libloather
Nearly 26,000 Could Vote at 5 U.S. Sites
Fri Jan 28, 3:59 AM ET
By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press Writer
DETROIT - Before the weekend's over, nearly 26,000 Iraqis from coast to coast will have the chance to cast absentee ballots in their homeland's first free elections in more than 50 years.
They'll pull back the curtain, step into the voting booth and do something historic — but also mostly symbolic. They simply don't have enough strength in numbers to significantly alter the results, and most of them know it.
"The sense is more often about having the right to vote and the access to vote and being thrilled by the opportunity," said Edina Lekovic, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.
Election organizers don't really know how many Iraqis in the United States are qualified to vote, but they put the figure at roughly 240,000. Using that number, the 25,946 who registered represent just slightly more than 10 percent of those eligible — people who turned 18 by Dec. 31 and were born in Iraq, are present or former citizens of Iraq or have an Iraqi father.
Registering to vote took some effort, election organizers say. It took place in only five cities — Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington and Nashville, Tenn. — during 10 days earlier this month that coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, when thousands of pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia.
Beginning Friday, voters must go back to where they registered to cast their ballots. Poll hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time.
"We recognize that the Iraqi voting population is spread out, and we never fooled ourselves into thinking we'd reach 100 percent of the population," said Jeremy Copeland of the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, which organized the vote in the United States and 13 other countries.
For other Iraqis, it wasn't time or place that kept them from registering, Copeland said. It was not having documentation, such as an Iraqi passport or a driver's license with a photo, to prove their eligibility or fearing their relatives in Iraq could face reprisal, even though all of the information collected was kept confidential.
Still, Copeland said officials were heartened by stories of intrepid Iraqis, such as a busload of more than 100 who drove from Washington state to Los Angeles last weekend to register.
Ali Almoumineen, a lawyer who left Iraq in 1992 and settled in Nashville, is one of those who registered to vote. He remembers Iraq's elections before Saddam Hussein fell.
"The ballot before had Saddam Hussein — yes or no — and if you put no, the bodyguard took you to the jail," said Almoumineen, who now teaches Arabic to U.S. troops.
Voting ends Sunday for the 275-member assembly that will draft Iraq's new constitution. The paper ballots will be counted by election staff in the five cities starting Tuesday. Once the counting is finished, on Feb. 3 at the latest, the IOM will give results to election officials in Iraq, who will announce them, Copeland said.
Ahmed Mohammed of Plano, Texas, sits in a van holding a flier suggesting how he and others should vote in the upcoming national elections in Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005, in Richardson, Texas. Mohammed and others members of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Dallas caravaned to Nashville on Wednesday to register to vote for the election. Nashville is one of five U.S. cities where Iraqi expatriates can go to participate in overseas balloting. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
What does this even mean? There are no meaningful pre-election polls. This election could be decided by a few hundred or a few thousand votes.
Stick to the news, "journalists!"
That's OK. The vote may still count.
I voted absentee from Iraq in the 2004 election and whether it was counted or not, my candidate won. :-)
How I loathe the media.
Are these Iraqis living in the USA?
If so, why are there that many here? Why do they not do one of the two following things;
1) Become US citizens and forget about Iraq
2) Go back to Iraq
We have too many people in this country that for some reason, think their "homeland" is more important than their home.
A lot of the iraqis living here are Chaldean Christians.
They left because they were persecuted.
I can't decide if they should vote or not....I largely agree that they should concentrate on becoming good Americans and forget Iraq, but perhaps they have family and friends back "home".
Doesn't matter, it's not my call to make anyway.
If it pi$$es off the bad guys it's probably a good thing.
Man, I want one of those Iraqi ballots for a souvenir. We're all trying to hatch plans on how we can get our hands on some.
That's probably one of those things we're not supposed to have, though.
Not that that's ever stopped us...
Note that any naturalized citizen of the USA that votes in another country's election is renouncing their US citizenship. There is no such thing a dual citizenship.
In our last election, the drive to register people living outside the US (barring military and students), who claimed dual citizenship was not legal.
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