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IRVINE, California
Wahab Murad, 43, flew in from Denver with his
20-year-old son, Dana, to cast absentee ballots in
Iraq's first independent election in nearly 50
years. As in many polling places across America, the
mood was upbeat as expatriates danced, sang and
celebrated.
The doors of the polling station at the
decommissioned El Toro Marine Base opened Sunday
while the election in Iraq was winding down, but
that didn't dampen voters´ enthusiasm. Some came
from more than 1,000 miles away.
"During 35 years in Iraq, nobody could vote," said
Murad, as he took pictures of his fellow Kurds
dancing and cheering. "I would walk from Denver if
possible."
Insurgents in Iraq _ including nine suicide bombers
_ struck polling stations Sunday, killing at least
44 people there. But turnout appeared to be higher
than predicted, officials said.
More than 16,000, or 63 percent, of registered Iraqi
expatriates in the United States had voted through
Saturday, according to the International
Organization for Migration.
Nearly 26,000 people registered in and around five
U.S. cities _ Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles,
Nashville, Tenn., and Washington _ to vote for the
275-member assembly that will draft Iraq's new
constitution.
In California, Kurdish women in colourful
traditional dresses and men in loose tunics waved
flags outside the Irvine polling station, feasted on
meat and vegetables and danced in a circle as
Kurdish music blasted from a car stereo. A few feet
away, a family of Christian Assyrians an Iraqi
ethnic minority _ waved an Assyrian flag and showed
off intricate tattoos on their arms.
Inside, poll workers clapped and cheered as one
voter after another dropped off ballots. Those who
had already cast their vote displayed ink-stained
fingers where poll workers marked them to prevent
double voting.
Some Iraqi expatriates said they had travelled
hundreds of miles in the past two weeks _ once to
register in person and again to vote. Preliminary
election results could come as early as Monday, but
an accurate estimate for turnout could take several
days, officials said.
"We all left around 9 a.m. so we could get here at
the same time and have a party after we voted," said
Kaniah Zangana, 47, a Kurd who came with her sister
and three children from San Diego. "This is history
for us, because Kurdish people have never had a
vote. They were always killed and poison-gassed by
Saddam Hussein. This is a very special day for us."
The mood also was joyful at a suburban Detroit
polling center. At one ballot box, an election
worker banged a tambourine and men did a
high-stepping dance as voters dropped in their paper
ballots.
Zeinab Alkhafaji, a Shiite Muslim from Dearborn,
Mich., was encouraged after talking to relatives in
Iraq, and learning they had voted safely.
"I feel like I´m going to cry. This is my first time
ever voting," said Alkhafaji, 20.
In Nashville, Kamel al-Abes sang as his pushed the
wheelchair of his 74-year-old mother, Ghabia al-Abes,
who clapped along. They had come in a bus from
Memphis with four other Iraqi families to vote.
"She´s almost 75, and this is the first time she
could vote," he said. "It´s taken all this time."
The election was the first for Rawand Darwesh, a
Fulbright scholar at American University in
Washington, D.C. He cast his vote in Maryland and
returns to Iraq later this year to work as a
journalist.
"I was telling my friends in the class that Iraqis
would send a powerful message to the world that yes,
they want a free Iraq," Darwesh said. The message to
the terrorists "is you will not intimidate us even
if you kill us every day."
In Skokie, Ill., Andriyous Youkhana, 61, voted on
Friday but returned Sunday with his three adult
children so they could vote.
"I wanted them to share this historic moment, so
that maybe one day they´ll go and visit newly
elected Iraq," said Youkhana, who moved from Iraq to
Chicago in 1968. "This is beautiful day."
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