Najat Salihi of Harrisburg, Pa., celebrates across the street from the Ramada Inn in New Carrollton where many voters participated in the Iraqi elections.

NEW CARROLLTON – As the world turned its attention to Iraq on Sunday, waiting intently to learn whether the country’s first free elections in half a century would go smoothly despite threats and terrorist attacks by anti-democracy insurgents, a CVS parking lot just eight miles from College Park became a place of celebration for Iraqis from all along the East Coast of the United States.

“Today is one of the happiest days of my life,” said Najiba Pishdary, 19, who danced in traditional Kurdish garb in the parking lot Saturday afternoon. She’d traveled 12 hours in the snow from Manchester, N.H., to cast her ballot for members of the new Iraqi parliament at the New Carrollton Ramada Inn.

“We hope for no more fighting, no more terrorists, everyone having their own freedom,” she said.

Pishdary was one of 1,524 Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans to vote at the New Carrollton site between its opening Friday and its closing Sunday. The site was one of five in the United States.

Voters trekked through snow and slush to a tent behind the hotel to be patted down before they could enter the polls. Many drove ten hours or more — their second drive — since registration, held from Jan. 17-23, also had to be done in person.

“Each time we have breakfast, then turn around and head right back,” said Abdultah Mustafa, 34, who’d driven from Florida.

But compared to the difficulties facing relatives in Iraq, voters said, the commute was nothing.

“We don’t have to be scared of someone blowing up our voting station,” said Ranj Mutabchi, 27, from Northern Virginia.

Many of the voters coming from the New Carrollton polls were Kurds, members of a minority ethnic group that dominates northern Iraq. They said they voted for candidates on the Kurdistan Alliance List, which combines the two established Kurdish political parties and is expected to be one of the better-faring parties in the election.

The 275-member national assembly, which will create Iraq’s constitution, will be composed in proportion with popular vote.

For many, however, the party that comes out on top is secondary to the existence of democracy.

“It’s for all of us,” said Zheyan Sayed, 23, of Harrisburg, Pa. “Everyone should have equal opportunity.”

Sayed, who voted for the first time, described the experience. “You get a chill,” she said, “you don’t believe it’s real.”

“It’s an atmosphere of excitement,” agreed Halal Dosky, 21, a Kurdish George Mason University student voting with her brother, Haval. “It’s about being proud, having our voice heard where it hasn’t been,” she said.

Halal had just returned from her home in northern Iraq, where she said violence isn’t as prevalent as in the South, but visiting reminds her why her parents fled from Saddam Hussein in 1977.

“Our sister was captured,” she said. “For 16 years my parents never heard from her, until 1991 when American soldiers in a helicopter found her and called us.”

The Doskys said they hoped the election would bring freedom of speech and other rights they had been refused under Saddam’s regime.

“We just hope for a better life for our people and an end to oppression,” Halal said.