IRVINE — Hours before sunrise Friday morning, four Iraqi immigrants from Arizona parked just outside the locked gate at the El Toro Naval Base near Irvine to wait for their chance to vote.
Standing outside their cars at 5 a.m., the group had left Phoenix around midnight to make sure they were among the first in line when the polls opened at 7 a.m. Some in the group smoked cigarettes to stay comfortable and talked to three early morning news agencies about why they had traveled so far to vote.
“This is our choice and the first chance for us to vote for our government after 40 years,” said 38-year-old Abdul Al Jazairi, who was in the car. “We’re coming here to support our country and build our country as well.”
This is not the first trip Jazairi made from Phoenix to Irvine. A week earlier, he and around 3,900 other Iraqis drove from several nearby states to register.
Many of those same Iraqis are retuning this weekend, driving long distances because the El Toro Naval Base is the only polling station for out-of-country voters on the West Coast.
Friday was the first of three days for out-of-country voting. In Iraq, voters only went to the polls Sunday. Voting also occurred in 14 countries outside of Iraq such as Syria and Sweden, and there were five polling stations in the United States, including Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Irvine.
Sami Hassan, who has lived in the United States for five years, drove roughly 1,000 miles to come to Southern California from Portland, Ore. to vote.
“All my life dreaming ...” Hassan said, his voice trailing off as he rushed to the polls.
Others, like Osman Omer and his wife Zehra Muhammed, came from San Diego and other places inside California, while some traveled even longer distances from Seattle and Salt Lake City.
Talal and Nikran Ibrahim, workers at the polling station, are from Mission Viejo in California and were lucky to have a polling place close to home. Shortly after 7 a.m. they were two of the first to cast their votes. Applause exploded as Nikran Ibrahim dropped her completed ballot into the box – something poll workers did to congratulate many voters with finished ballots.
“I am 52 years old and this is my first time voting,” Talal Ibrahim said. “This is the first step for a stable government in Iraq.”
Talal Ibrahim said he came from Baghdad in 1980 because of the war Iraq started in Iran. He now hopes that a new government can provide security and stability for Iraq so that his children may have the opportunity to return to his homeland.
“The problem can’t be solved without a stable government, and a stable government has to be an elected government,” he said.