Iraqis in US register for overseas vote
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-18 05:11

SOUTHGATE, Mich. - Abdulrasul al-Hayder was ecstatic. The 48-year-old Detroit resident registered Monday to vote in Iraq's first independent election in nearly 50 years. It was the first day of registration for 1 million Iraqis living outside their country.

Abdulrasul al-Hayder holds up his voter registration card in Southgate, Mich., Monday, Jan. 17, 2005. [AP]

"I was the first to register," he kept saying, holding a card aloft and smiling from ear-to-ear.

"This is a great moment for me and for the people of Iraq," said al-Hayder, a university professor in Iraq who came to the United States in 1992. "This is the moment when Iraqis will put their stamp on the democracy. We've been waiting so many years."

The Detroit area has the largest population of Iraqi immigrants in the United States. Up to 80,000 in Michigan are eligible to participate in this month's election. In the United States, registration also was taking place in the Los Angeles area, Nashville, Tenn., Chicago and Washington, D.C.

In Southgate,  election workers constructed 30 to 40 "rooms" out of cloth inside an abandoned store. Periodically, cheers would erupt from one of the rooms after a successful registration was completed.

"It's the first time for the Iraqis," said Bushra Albrhi, who came to the United States in 1994. "We'll be very happy if we get a president from the people."

The run-up to registration has been plagued by confusion among potential voters, who have struggled to find out where, when or how to vote — and whether they are even eligible. Some were frustrated by the limited number of polling centers and by a prohibition on mail-in ballots and Internet voting because of fears of fraud. There were also concerns expressed about security.

A Wayne County spokeswoman said last week that officers from Southgate, the county and the state police would secure the building. Two private security guards checked visitors as they entered the building Monday morning, and other security personnel patrolled the parking lot.

The seven-day registration period ends Jan. 23. Voting will begin Jan. 28 and continue until the Jan. 30 election in Iraq.

In Nashville, about 25 Kurdish men waited outdoors in temperatures in the teens to register. The city is home to up to 8,000 Iraqis who are mostly Kurdish, a people who suffered under the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

Sabah Badel, 40, a Nashville resident who has been in the United States for 12 years, said nearly all the expatriated Iraqis he knows are planning to vote.

He said other members of his family were not deterred from traveling from Dallas to register in Nashville.

"It's the first time in our lives we have an election," said Badel. "We're very happy and very excited about it."

Voter registration is open to those 18 and older who are present or former Iraqi citizens, those who were born in Iraq and those whose fathers are Iraqi. Voters must have documents to prove they are eligible.

Voters are being asked to pick members of the 275-member Assembly, which will have a one-year mandate. Their responsibilities will include electing a president and two deputy presidents, and drafting Iraq's Constitution.

The Southern California location — the only one in the western United States — is the decommissioned El Toro Marine Base in Irvine. Election officials estimate up to 35,000 Iraqis will register and vote there.

"I think we're going to lose some voters, but we're lucky to have an office here at all," said Basim Ridha Alhussaini, an Iraqi expatriate responsible for training some 320 poll workers in Southern California.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq in Baghdad authorized an out-of-country vote in November and enlisted the non-governmental International Organization of Migration to organize it.

Other nations hosting overseas polling are Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria and the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

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