2010 Iraqi Elections: Why I Will Vote

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Check out the paper ballots and clear tubs.

2010 Iraqi Elections: Why I Will Vote



A polling station in Baghdad during early voting for Iraq’s parliamentary election
BAGHDAD — I didn’t vote in the 2009 provincial elections. I think I was busy, or I didn’t really care. This time is different. The vote will decide who rules the country for the next four years – the first to lead, in theory, without American soldiers. “Your vote is golden,” Iraqis are being told. I really believe that, despite my disappointment with Iraqi leaders and all the chaos of the political process here.

In at least one surprising way, that process is getting better. I had no idea what polling station I should go to, since my family and I were pushed out of our home in western Baghdad in 2006, during the sectarian civil war. My father was murdered then.

On Saturday, the day before voting, Sa’ad al-Izzi, one of my colleagues at The New York Times, told me it was easy to find out where to vote. He had just found his voting center by entering his food ration card number and the food supplying center number into a Web site for the Independent High Electoral Commission.


This was a first. Why not try?

I called my mother to get the ration card and the supplying center’s numbers. I was surprised: This election she and my two younger brothers and sister were insisting to know where they could vote. Last time nobody cared and, anyway, nobody knew where to vote because we were displaced.

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more at the link
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/2010-iraqi-elections-why-i-will-vote/