Hundreds of Iraqi expatriates from the East Coast began flocking to a Best Western hotel in McLean yesterday to cast absentee ballots in their homeland’s parliamentary elections.
The expatriates will help elect the 275-member national assembly, the first fully constitutional government to rule Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. Election day in Iraq is tomorrow.
“I am 65, and this is one of the first times voting in my life,” said Amir Al-Abdulla, a Richmond resident who took part in the historic election in McLean. “No one forced me to choose anyone. No one told me who to pick. For the first time, we are going to have all the rights this country has. We are having freedom.”
The Best Western Tysons Westpark is one of seven U.S. polling sites — and the only one on the East Coast — set up for the election. The other sites are in Nashville and in areas outside Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago and Detroit, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, which organized the elections.
The polling place in McLean is scheduled to be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and tomorrow, the last day when expatriates can vote.
The votes will be counted, and the results telephoned into Iraq, organizers said. The ballots will be stored in a secure location and shipped to Iraq, probably by the beginning of next week.
At the hotel’s conference room in McLean, the mood was festive as expatriates cast their ballots and then dipped their index finger into a bottle of purple ink, signifying their participation in the election. Some voters arrived at the hotel draped in the Iraqi flag.
About 6,000 Washington-area residents are eligible to vote, and most likely will, said Hikmet Bamain, 52, an Iraqi Embassy official from Herndon.
“I like democracy. It’s absolutely a good thing,” Mr. Bamain said. “But democracy will not occur overnight,” he said, explaining that citizens must vote and winners must respect each other and abide by the laws.
Security in the hotel was heavy. Police officers stood at the hotel entrance and throughout the polling place. Security guards patted down those entering the polling place and searched their bags.
Many voters saw yesterday as a victory. They said after years of bloodshed in Iraq, they can vote in a safe place and make their homeland a better and safer place to live for the families some of them had left behind.
“Today is the culmination of decades of waiting for a time when an Iraqi can cast his vote without fear,” said Mahmud Thamer, 75, who moved to Baltimore from Iraq in 2003.
“I have over 100 family members in Baghdad, and I worry about them all the time. When they go out, we don’t know if they are ever going to come back,” Mr. Thamer said. “But someday they are going to come and go in safety, and today is a step towards making them be able to do that.”
Voters will choose from more than 200 political parties that represent about 7,000 candidates. The votes will count in the allotment of 45 national seats in the parliament.
“It’s going to be quite unique,” said Mohammed Sindy, 21, a school counselor from Manassas who is joining the U.S. Marines. “This election has an actual resemblance to a democracy.”
“I’m voting for myself and for my children,” said Zainab Alkateb, 33, of McLean, who graduated from high school in Iraq before she got married and came to the U.S., where she is raising three children. “We have been missing that for a long time.”
Election officials expect 2,000 to 3,000 people to cast ballots in McLean by tomorrow night, which would be comparable to the turnout for the January election, said Safa Alkateb, the local organizer for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
Only about 10 percent of the estimated 240,000 eligible Iraqi voters in the U.S. cast ballots in January when elections were held for an interim parliament.
The local polling place in January was at a hotel in Prince George’s County. This time, organizers moved the polling place to McLean because they said the area is more accessible to Iraqi residents, Mrs. Alkateb said.
Expatriate voters who are eligible to vote in the elections can be American citizens, but must be 18 or older, have been born in Iraq and hold citizenship there. Iraqis born in the U.S. who can prove their father is Iraqi also can vote.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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