The New Carrollton Ramada Inn and Conference Center has been chosen as the polling station for Iraqi immigrants in the Washington area who want to cast absentee ballots in their homeland's Jan. 30 election.
The hotel's 22,000-square-foot exhibition center is also the only polling site in the northeastern United States and could draw as many as 20,000 voters, election officials say.
Michael Irish'Stephenson, an official with the Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program, which is running the Iraqi election in this country, said the exhibition center was "one of the few places available" during the registration and voting period later this month.
Iraqi immigrants who want to vote in the election must register at a polling station from Jan. 17 to Jan. 23, then return to vote from Jan. 28 to Jan. 30.
The hotel's location was also a consideration, Irish'Stephenson said. Its site at the Capitol Beltway and Route 450, half a block from the New Carrollton Metro and Amtrak station, makes it relatively accessible to Washington area residents as well as travelers along the northeast coast.
Irish'Stephenson said the single-floor exhibition center, which is separate from the 10-story hotel, was also a good choice from a security standpoint. "It's definitely easier to secure than some of the other sites" that were considered, he said.
Election officials said they plan to hire private companies to provide security at polling stations and to guard the ballots. But they added that they also will depend on local police agencies to help with overall security.
"We're aware . . . that they are having their elections at the Ramada Inn . . . and we're currently coordinating with the FBI," Lt. Steve Yuen, a Prince George's County police spokesman, said yesterday.
Election organizers initially had planned to set up two or three polling sites for each of the five voting centers that will serve perhaps as many as 240,000 eligible Iraqi voters living in this country. Besides Washington, those centers are in Nashville, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.
But after considering such things as access and security, officials decided that in some cities, it would be "better to go for a fewer number of large sites," Roger Bryant, head of the Iraq election team in this country, told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.
Iraqi-born Ali A. Al-Attar, a Falls Church physician, said he was not upset that there is only one polling site in the Washington area. "I think people are going to travel from New York and Boston to come here to vote," he said. "I should not complain if I drive 25 minutes to New Carrollton. I would be more than happy to go and vote anywhere."
The election will determine the makeup of a 275-seat National Assembly with a one-year mandate to draft a permanent national constitution. To be eligible to vote, a U.S. resident must have been 18 or older by Dec. 31 and must present evidence he or she is an Iraqi citizen or a former Iraqi citizen who acquired U.S. citizenship, or that his or her father was born in Iraq.
The New Carrollton hotel complex may not have the luster of expensive downtown Washington hotels, but it has had considerable traffic over the years. It is a frequent venue for computer and trade shows and, according to New Carrollton City Manager Jeff Klem, is often the last rest stop for U.S. soldiers on their way back to Iraq after home leave.
Klem said he was pleased that the complex had been selected as a polling station. "This is democracy at work," he said.
