Iraqis vote in constitutional referendum
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-15 14:32

Ratification of the constitution requires approval by a majority of voters nationwide. However, if two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote "no," the constitution will be defeated, and Sunni Arab opponents have a chance of swinging the ballot in four volatile provinces: Anbar, Nineveh, Salahuddin and Diyala.

In the mostly Shiite city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, lines quickly formed at polling stations Saturday morning.

Some voters carried Iraqi flags and banners saying, "Yes to the constitution." Iraqi police guarding the streets and imams at local mosques both used loudspeakers to urge Hillah residents to cast ballots.

But Haditha, a mostly Sunni Arab city 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, where a large U.S. offensive was just fought against insurgents, was much less enthusiastic.

Other than soldiers and polling station workers, no one showed up to vote in the first 90 minutes of voting. One reason was that residents had only been told of the polling site locations minutes beforehand.

Just after dawn U.S. Humvees roamed the streets, blaring the location of two polling sites in the city. The locations were kept hidden until the last minute to prevent insurgent attacks.

The main polling station was heavily guarded, located up a long, winding walkway to a schoolhouse on top of a hill. A U.S. tank, concrete barriers and metal detectors were positioned at the front of the polling station entrance along with dozens of Marines. Iraqi soldiers roamed the rest of the complex.

"I hope they have a really big turnout," said Lance Cpl. Sam Smithson of Sacramento, Calif., as he helped guard the entrance of the station. "The closer they get to independence, the closer we get to going home."

In Friday sermons across the nation, the message from Shiite pulpits was an unequivocal "yes," but it was not so clear-cut in Sunni Arab mosques — varying from "yes," "no" and "vote your conscience."

In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad, Sheik Rasheed Yousif al-Khishman exhorted worshippers at the al-Raheem mosque to reject the charter, saying the draft was an "infidel constitution written by foreign hands."

In the nearby town of Samarra — another bastion of Sunni militancy — Sheik Adil Mahmoud of the influential Sunni Association of Muslims Scholars delivered a more tempered sermon. "I will go to the polls and vote 'no,' but I leave the choice to you," he said.