10 June 2009
Polls Will Be Open for Iranians Voting in United States
Washington — As Iranians go to the polls June 12, they will be joined by fellow citizens around the world, including in the United States. As of June 10, 40 voting booths have been set up through the Iranian interests section in Washington to allow them to participate in the presidential election.
America.gov spoke with a visiting Iranian university professor who plans to cast his ballot. He has been following the debates and political discourse inside Iran over the Internet and through correspondence with friends and family.
Unlike absentee voting systems where participants mail their ballots to election officials, Iranians in the United States will be showing up in person at the polls, which are run by local volunteers chosen by the interests section.
“The voting law in Iran is that each candidate can have a representative at any voting booth,” the professor said. “Usually they use people who are trusted in the community.”
Both the staffing and the voting locations were decided about two weeks before the election. In the Washington area, the professor said, there are three or four locations, including a mosque and the interests section itself, which is housed in the Embassy of Pakistan.
According to the 2000 census, 338,000 Iranian natives live in the United States, but the private, nonprofit organization Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans speculates that the number is actually two to three times higher.
Along with Washington and Los Angeles, which hosts a large Iranian-native population, there will be polling places in Salt Lake City; St. Louis; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Tucson, Arizona.
The professor said there will also be a polling place in Blacksburg, Virginia, which hosts Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech. “Even though it is a small village, there will be a voting booth that Iranians can come and vote. So it is pretty interesting, I think,” he said.
“I think at the end of the day, given that the numbers of [Iranian voters in the United States] aren’t that large, this is more of a symbolic participation and presence in different cities of the U.S.,” the professor said. But, he added, “it’s good to see some interest here as well, and hopefully it will be a good election.”
The professor said he voted from the United States in the 2005 Iranian presidential election when he was living in Boston. He went to a hotel where the interests section had rented a conference room for use as a polling place. The experience was “pretty smooth.”
“There wasn’t any line, so you could go there and you would have your passport or your birth certificate and you would go and fill [the ballot] out. It took maybe 10 minutes total,” he said.
News reports have described Iran’s 2009 presidential campaign as being more vibrant than normal, with huge demonstrations supporting both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi.
On June 4, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi engaged in a contentious television debate that included charges of corruption and economic mismanagement, as well as a discussion of Iran’s relations with the international community. The professor said he was able to watch the debate on YouTube.
The other two candidates are Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote June 12, a run-off election will be held June 19.
On June 8, tens of thousands of Ahmadinejad’s supporters gathered in a prayer hall in central Tehran. At the same time, Mousavi’s supporters formed a human chain along a 24-kilometer highway. The news reports described these as the largest gatherings in Tehran in more than a decade.
“I’ve been looking at the pictures of some of those [demonstrations] from over the Internet and following them,” the professor said. “I have been talking with some family and friends in Iran. It seems that they seem to feel that the whole atmosphere is becoming very electrified and people are very excited and they see this as a serious election. I expect higher participation rates this time than last time.”
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States has been following the events in Iran “very closely,” and is “always encouraged” by free and lawful expression.
Speaking to reporters June 9, Kelly said President Obama’s offer of direct engagement with Iran is still on the table and he hopes that Iran will respond soon. “We look forward to the time when Iran begins to re-engage with us on some regional issues, [and] on nonproliferation,” he said.
