Iraqi-Americans voting

[realFedUp]

Sorry, I'm clueless on this issue...do Iraqi-Americans
hold dual citizenships in America and Iraq in order to
vote in Iraq? Do they also vote in American elections? Are they
citizens of this country or just of Iraq?
Seems that the real story are the votes outside
Iraq...will they vote for the Shiite candidate in
large part? Who is overseeing the votes in this
country? I can't imagine the same election workers
in American elections...

TIA

[RobertSeattle]

1. Apparently you only have to prove being born in Iraq

WHO CAN VOTE: Eligible voters can be American citizens, but must meet other requirements such as having been born in Iraq, or having an Iraqi-born father. About 240,000 Iraqis are eligible to vote in the United States.

Go figure.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=976824&tw=wn_wire_story

[atreides1]

3. SOOOOO....

....that would mean that anyone born in another country, whose father was born in the US should be able to vote in American elections?

[realFedUp]

9. by this logic, yeah.

[realFedUp]

6. and more from this site...

thanks for posting :-) this does seem fishy at best....

and more:

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=RelatedStories&pitem=AP%2DIraq+Overseas+Vote+US&rev=20050117&pub_tag=APONLINE&relatedTo=976824&from=relatedstory&rsNum=1

"Eligible voters can be American citizens, but must be 18 or older, have been born in Iraq, hold citizenship or prove that their father was Iraqi.

Preparations for the election around the world mirrored those in Iraq itself, where the top U.S. general there predicted violence during the national election but pledged Monday to do "everything in our power" to ensure safety of voters.

The U.S. polling stations were monitored by armed guards and metal detectors. In Nashville, those seeking to register could not go directly to the two election sites, but had to gather at a hastily arranged location to board a bus."

[liberal N proud]

2. Isn't it amazing, we can make sure that people in the US

who claim to have lived in Iraq at one time can vote absentee no less without trouble.
Yet a man moves one block down the street to a new apartment and he is no longer eligible to vote in his own "HOMELAND" country. And we can't get absentee ballots returned from our troops who are in Iraq fighting so the Iraqis can vote.
What a f#$ked up system we have, and it is called the model.

[toymachines]

4. ha, oh wait thats not really funny at all

well that is ridiculous. the poor people who live in iraq. we never stop fucking with them.

[Xithras]

10. They are not voting absentee

There will be no mailed ballots of any kind. Iraqi expatriates wanting to vote in the election will have to physically show up at one of five polling places in the country, often hundreds of miles from their homes, and register prior to the election. They will then have to make the long trip a SECOND time to actually cast their ballot. On both trips they will be ID'd thoroughly, subject to physical searches for weapons and bombs, and will be marked with a permanent ink after casting their ballots that will take over a week to fade (to prevent people from voting more than once).

While it's interesting that Iraqi expatriates get to vote at all, something tells me that we DON'T want that kind of system for our own elections.

[liberal N proud]

11. Not at all, I don't want someone who left for citizenship elsewhere

to vote here.
My point was just how hard we work to stop people here in the US from voting on Nov. 2 but working so hard to help them vote.

[Xithras]

12. Many are actually planning on returning.

One of the Iraqi ladies I work with lost her brother to an American bomb in 1991 and definitely isn't a Bush supporter, but she is voting in the election in the hope of improving the country that she fled eight years ago and plans on returning to next year. Many Iraqi's fled Iraq because the alternative was death for themselves or their children at the hands of Saddam's forces, but with Saddam gone they plan on returning to rebuild the "modern" and cosmopolitan Iraq that existed before Hussein bankrupted the country in 1980 when he launched the Iran/Iraq War. To these people, Iraq was the burning home that they fled to save their own lives, but that they now plan on rebuilding and returning to.

[liberal N proud]

14. I was slamming the system we have for our voters not

the Iraqi system.
It is a shame that we can insure that someone from Iraq living in the US gets to vote but if you move a block down the street you can not vote in a US election unless you register again.

[hector459]

13. You make an excellent point. Ask the MSM. Ask FOX to respond

It will be very interesting to see what they have to say.

[Xithras]

5. Dual citizenship, mostly

I live in an area with a very large number of Iraqi expatriates (second largest expatriate Iraqi population in the US, IIRC), of both the Arab and Assyrian variety. Most of these people do, in fact, hold dual citizenship and vote in American elections.

According to the Iraqi working 3 feet from me (who drove 300 miles to LA to register yesterday, and who will be driving it again to cast his ballot soon), there are only a handful of polling places in each of the nations participating, and the actual registration and polling is being handled by the Iraqi embassies in coordination with their host countries. The US also isn't the only country this will be happening in...similar elections will also be held in France, Britain, Germany, and other nations with large Iraqi populations.

[realFedUp]

8. thanks for that info also...n/t

[Jacobin]

15. Has he figured out how to 'vote' on the empty boxes?

I understand that most of the 'candidates' are anonymous.

[realFedUp]

16. Would be interesting to see that ballot

anyone have a link to a photo of one? One
that Iraqi-Americans will be using...and is
it just in Arabic or English also?

[Xithras]

18. Actually, it's proportional representation

Choosing the party is more important than choosing the individual, and it's a system that many here on DU would like to see implemented for the US. Basically, every party that runs will get a seat, but the percentage of votes they get will decide the percentage of the seats they hold. The resulting assembly will then write a new constitution and decide whether to keep this system.

A few other interesting tidbits from the next cubicle:

1. On election day in Iraq, there will be NO US troops guarding the polling places. The Iraqi election commission didn't want potentially anti-American voters to avoid the polls simply because they'd come face to face with our soldiers, so they told us to back off. To our credit, we agreed.

2. ALL of the major parties and coalitions have removing the US military presence as their #1 platform plank. The few parties that actually do support a continued US presence have virtually no support (the Sunni's want to kill them, the Shiites laugh at them, and everybody else ignores them).

3. A third of the candidates are women, as is constitutionally required for Iraq.

4. The ballots are printed in Switzerland, and they will apparently be in Arabic.

5. My co-worker will be voting for the INA, Allawi's group. They are apparently the only major group on the ballot that actively pushes the idea of a secular Iraq, and it's candidate list is dominated by former socialist Ba'thists. He's pretty certain that the INA won't win a majority (especially without a widespread Sunni turnout), but he's hoping that they'll get enough seats to seriously effect the new constitution that the assembly will be creating.

[realFedUp]

19. thanks again to your cube mate

he sounds optimistic. I would expect that
from an Iraqi American, but just the same...

[Career Prole]

7. Doesn't matter if you've never set foot in Iraq, as long as your father

was born there and you reside in one of the fourteen or so countries on the absentee voting list then you can vote.
Since expatriate Iraqis are in the main westernized and pro-chimp they'll vote for the neocon slate. Oops...I mean Allawi's party.

[realFedUp]

17. It seems to me the real story in this election is outside Iraq

aside from the fact that the actual election
inside the country won't be representative
of all the people, the real story seems to
be votes outside the country...many of us
would draw the conclusion that those votes
will lean towards a U.S. backed theocracy
or parliamentary at best if the votes are
actual ones at all and not rigged again by
this administration. The Iraqi embassy at
best just reflects the Chalabis and Iraqi
Democratic Congress...