Ali over at Free Iraqi blogs about Elections, and related fears.

Hoping to boost Iraq election voting, the United States is setting up polling places in five American cities - Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Nashville - to give expatriates a voice in choosing an interim assembly in Baghdad. Some 240,000 Iraqis, who under Iraqi law include people with Iraqi fathers, are eligible to register Jan. 17-23 and then return to the polling places to vote Jan. 28-30, a State Department official said Wednesday. (AP)

Related, Election Officials Reach Out to Expatriate Iraqi Voters. Election administrators in charge of out-of-country voting (OCV) for the upcoming Iraqi elections are reaching out to expatriate Iraqis through media outlets, community organizations and the Internet as the voter registration period approaches. “We rely very much on media, on community leaders to give us help disseminating the message to voters,” says Svetlana Galinka, head of voter education for the OCV program in the United States. (US Dept. of State)

Troops from Multinational Force Iraq are working to ensure every Iraqi who wants to vote has the chance to do so in the Jan. 30 election. The election is "a high stakes" event for the Iraqi people and for the coalition, said a senior MNFI official. "This is the first democratic election since the state of Iraq was established in 1928," said the official. "I guess you could really say it's the first election in this part of Iraq in 5,000 years." (US Dept. of Defense)