Iraqis say trip worth it to vote

IRVINE, Calif. – A 21-hour drive from Seattle to a polling center in Southern California was trivial to a group of Iraqi expatriates who took just minutes to vote in their country’s first independent election in a half century.

“This is something we’ve never experienced,” said Yahya Al-Garib, 37, an Iraqi community leader from Seattle who was raised near the Kuwaiti border. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, he was arrested, beaten and placed in solitary confinement for three months in Iraq before arriving in Seattle 11 years ago. His father and two brothers were also jailed, and an uncle was killed. “We were under a system and we had no choice, no opinion. We had just one regime and we had to follow it.”

Voters in Iraq cast their ballots Sunday, while Iraqis overseas voted Friday through Sunday to elect a 275-member national assembly that will draft a constitution and elect a president over the next year.

“It feels like we’re going to make a big change,” said Marwa Sadik, 19, a South Seattle Community College student among the hundreds who converged Saturday at the decommissioned El Toro Marine Corps Air Station south of Los Angeles. As the country’s only polling site west of the Mississippi River, it received people from Portland, Phoenix, and cities in Utah, Colorado and throughout California. Other U.S. polling locations were in Detroit, Chicago, Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.

More than 100 men, women and children left Seattle on Friday morning in a caravan of rented minivans. During the 1,200-mile drive, the Muslim group stopped at rest areas along Interstate 5 to pray and eat, all the while fueled by the promise of a better life for a country so long oppressed.

They arrived at 5 a.m. Saturday and slept only a few hours at a motel before driving to the base. Before voting, Iraqis had to weave through several security checkpoints, then show identification as well a voter’s registration receipt. They also stuck their right index finger in a jar of purple ink – a system to prevent people from voting multiple times.

The white ballots, the size of a newspaper page, went into giant plastic tubs. Voters walked away to the applause of election workers who cheered, “Mabruk!” – Arabic for “congratulations.”

Outside a spirited crowd gathered in the parking lot, music blaring from car stereos. Vendors sold saffron rice and grilled chicken, and volunteers handed out coffee and croissants.

Groups of Kurds and women in flowing shiny dresses danced arm in arm, while a nearby group of Assyrians sang songs and waved flags.

“We’re all Iraqi,” said Ali Al-Abbas of Portland, while waving a sign that read, “Iraq’s Future Has Voice. Your Voice.”

Nationwide, registration numbers were lower than expected, with only about 26,000 of the nearly 250,000 eligible voters registering. The Southern California polling site expected 3,900 people to vote this weekend.

Many said it was their solemn responsibility.

“I feel it’s my job to vote,” said Huda Al-Samach, 22, of Seattle. “I’m so happy to be here.”