Iraq election comes to Pleasanton

The polling station at the Alameda County Fairground will be open from Friday through Sunday

Iraqis from all over the region are heading to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton this weekend to vote in Iraq’s parliamentary election.

The Pleasanton polling station is one of just eight polling locations in the U.S. It will be open Friday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to accommodate far-flung voters who will come to choose among the more than 6,000 candidates vying for 325 parliamentary seats. In Iraq, Sunday will be the only day the general public can vote.

Early voting in Iraq on Thursday for soldiers, police officers and hospital patients was marred by several bombing incidents, and there are threats that more violence will follow on Sunday. But Friday morning in Pleasanton, the mood was calm and the lines to vote were short. Organizers expect larger crowds on Saturday and Sunday.

Polling manager Raymond George of Modesto said that about 1800 Iraqis cast ballots in Pleasanton during the 2005 election, the first in which it was possible to vote from the U.S.

Rose Warda, who left Iraq 28 years ago and now lives in Modesto, worked at the Pleasanton polling station during the last election. She said she expected a greater turnout this year. “They have a lot of awareness programs for elections to encourage people to come on board,” Warda said as she passed through the metal detector on her way to the polling station. “We are going towards democracy,” she said, with a laugh.

George said that the protocol for voting in the U.S. is identical to the process in Iraq. But this year, he said, voters in Pleasanton should be prepared to encounter stricter requirements about the documents they will need to establish eligibility to vote. While there is no voter registration for Iraqis abroad, voters must be 18 and show two forms of identification, including one Iraqi document that proves either they or a parent was born in Iraq. “Some people are surprised, they were not aware," said George of the requirements.

Marwa Sadik said she and her mother and husband were among those who were turned away from the polls on Friday for not presenting the right paperwork. Her family made the 14-hour drive from Seattle to Pleasanton with four other families just to vote. “It’s very sad,” said the 24-year old who had voted at the same spot in 2005. “It’s a long trip and we were excited to vote.” She brought an ID she picked up during a visit to Iraq in 2008, but polling place authorities would not accept it, she said.

But some of her family members were successful. Her cousin Modher Alrubaje, a 38-year old truck driver, had the tell-tale purple stain on his fingertip signifying that he had voted. He said he had come for the “opportunity to experience change in Iraq.”

Hesham Alalusi who runs the Alalusi Foundation, a Hayward based charitable organization, said he is organizing a carpool to take people to the polls on Saturday. “There is a good portion who want to stay home and we are trying to encourage them to come out,” he said. The carpool will leave from the Lafayette Bart station at 11:00 AM on Saturday. Alalusi, whose foundation is about to launch a project to help orphans and widows in Iraq, said that while he often felt despair about his country, what motivated him to vote was the “glimpse of hope that something good may happen.”