Global Poll For Us Citizens
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday February 11, 2008
AMERICAN expatriates who went to the Agincourt Hotel on Saturday to vote for the Democrats' presidential nominee included some who were voting in their first primary.
Sam Ramos, of Croydon Park, came from Anchorage, Alaska, in 2005 after he retired. He said he had come out to vote because he believed the presidency of George Bush was "a disaster". "I have that feeling, 'Oh wow, I must do something about what's happening in America'," he said.Mr Ramos was voting for Barack Obama, citing the candidate's "conciliatory attitude", but he said he would vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she received the Democratic nomination.There are venues in 34 countries serving as voting centres for the Democrats Abroad Global Primary, which runs from February 5 to February 12. The organisation has the same status as the Democratic state-based parties, and will send 22 delegates with 11 votes between them to the party's national convention. That is fewer than the 18 votes cast by delegates from America's least populous state, Wyoming, but greater than the nine votes allocated to American Samoa. Nicholas Hammond, from Los Angeles and now living in Paddington, voted in the primary online. "That's the great thing about the democratic process," he said. "In the upstairs room of a pub in Sydney, you can think, well, I'm deciding the next president of the United States."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
