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Iraqi expats in chicago are skeptical Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/10716531.htmhttp://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/10716531.htm
Posted on Sun, Jan. 23, 2005
Some Iraqi expats in Chicago are skeptical about election
Associated Press
CHICAGO - The registration period for expatriates who want to vote in the upcoming Iraqi elections has been extended by two days, but some Iraqis in the Chicago area say they're reluctant to cast a ballot.
About 7 percent of the 240,000 Iraqi expatriates in the United States who are eligible to vote had registered for the Jan. 30 election as of Saturday, according to the Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program USA.
June Chua, spokeswoman for the Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program USA, said the process has been slowed by bad weather, the long distances that many Iraqis must travel to get to a polling place, and short registration hours, which officials extended by two hours a day last week.
On Saturday, the group said the registration deadline would be extended to Tuesday. The original deadline was Sunday.
"We are extending our operation in an effort to provide Iraqi voters with as much access to our centers as possible," program director Peter Erben said in a statement.
But some Chicago Iraqi expatriates said they are opposed to the election and don't plan to vote.
Laith Al-Saud, a social sciences professor at Harold Washington College in Chicago, said he thinks the election is illegal because the interim government that organized it was appointed by an occupying power.
"There's this sort of general assumption - even among those who plan to vote - that (interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad) Allawi is going to win because he's the U.S.'s guy," Al-Saud said.
Al-Saud added that the thousands of candidates running in the election has left voters confused.
"They don't know who is running. They don't know who to vote for," Al-Saud said.
Basim Shakir, who left Iraq in 1992 and is now a dentist in Chicago, said he worries violence in Iraq and a lack of United Nations oversight will cast doubt over the election's outcome. He thinks the election should be postponed.
"If you have some people who are sitting aside, or if you exclude one large sector of the community, there will be problems," Shakir said.
An estimated 1.2 million Iraqi expatriates in 14 nations including the United States were able to register beginning Jan. 16. About 188,000 worldwide had registered as of Saturday, including 3,700 Iraqis who signed up in Chicago, according to the program.
Polling stations in the United States are located in four other U.S. cities with large Iraqi immigrant populations: Los Angeles, Detroit, Nashville and Washington, D.C.
ON THE NET
Iraq Out-of-Country Vote: http://www.iraqocv.org
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