Chaldean community upset by lack of Iraqi polling sites, says priest

Published: 2005-01-26

EL CAJON, Calif. (CNS) -- San Diego's Chaldean community feels betrayed by Iraq's out-of-country voting program, which put only one U.S. polling site West of the Mississippi River, according to Father Michael Bazzi, pastor of St. Peter's Chaldean Cathedral in San Diego. "We are the third largest community from Iraq in the United States, and they bypassed us," Father Bazzi said. "We were supposed to have a center here to vote. We tried so much. We fought so much. They betrayed us, and we are very disappointed," he told The Southern Cross, diocesan newspaper of San Diego. Polling sites for the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections have been set up in 14 countries outside Iraq, including the United States, where Iraqi citizens or those born to Iraqi fathers are eligible to vote from Jan. 28-30 to elect an assembly to draft a constitution for Iraq. The American cities chosen as polling places include Irvine, just outside Los Angeles, Nashville, Tenn., and Chicago, Detroit and Washington. To take part in the vote, the estimated 25,000 eligible voters living in San Diego have to make two trips to Irvine -- one trip to register, another to vote.

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