Expatriates excited to cast their ballots

For many, driving several hours seemed like a small sacrifice to make.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- Under tight security, Iraqi expatriates cast absentee ballots at polling places across the United States on Tuesday in their homeland's historic parliamentary elections, some of them excitedly lining up before the polls opened and many driving hundreds of miles.
"I feel happy. It's a special day," said Hekmat Alhassan.
The purple ink dripping from his index finger, a marker to ensure that people don't vote twice, was a minor inconvenience for the 35-year-old auto mechanic from Dearborn.
Thousands of expatriates around the globe are voting this week for 275 members of Iraq's National Assembly. The new legislature will make laws in the coming four years and choose the first fully constitutional government in that country since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's rule in 2003.
At a banquet hall in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that is home to thousands of Iraqis who fled Saddam's regime, bomb-sniffing dogs checked the building inside and out before voting began; metal detectors were installed in the lobby, and police and private security guards were everywhere.
That didn't bother Akeel AlMosawi, who arrived a half-hour before the polls opened.
"I can't wait. I can't sleep last night," said the Dearborn truck driver who took the day off to vote.
"We're going to pick, not like somebody else is going to pick for us," said AlMosawi, 31, who was born in southern Iraq.
'A good feeling'
Fouad K. AlNajjar, who heads the elections in Michigan, said the turnout appeared to be better than in the constitutional election in January.
"The flow is outstanding," he said Tuesday. "It didn't stop. It has been going very well."
Some voters arrived at a polling station in McLean, Va., a Washington suburb, draped in the Iraqi flag, and many happily wagged their ink-stained fingers.
"This is the symbol of Iraq, the symbol of freedom," said Mohamad Khalil of Morgantown, W.Va., holding up his ink-stained finger. "It is easy for us to vote -- we just drive three or four hours. They take a lot of risk to vote" in Iraq.
"It's a good feeling to be part of history," said Raz Abdulqadir of Harrisburg, Pa., who said at McLean that she voted for one of the Kurdish parties that wants to keep Kurdistan as part of a united Iraq. "We suffered through Saddam's regime. It's our right as Kurds to vote."
Abbas Ahmed drove 330 miles from Arizona to a fairground in Pomona, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, with a brother-in-law and four friends.
"This is wonderful to come and vote, to pick a government, hopefully, the right government," said the 19-year-old high school senior, who left home in Phoenix at 4 a.m.
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