JEDDAH, 16 January 2008 — Saeed Elhadi, a longtime resident of a suburb of Detroit, says he’s uncertain if he will vote in today’s Michigan primary or not. “In my opinion I don’t think many Muslims in Michigan voted either in the primary or will cast a ballot in the upcoming presidential election for that matter,” Elhadi said. “I think that many of them feel that voting isn’t a top priority and has little effect on the political outcome so they don’t see the point in making the effort.”
The feeling of being unrecognized has been coupled with the controversy surrounding the changing of the date of the primary, which caused the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to declare none of the state’s 128 delegates will be used to decide the Democratic candidate.
Furthermore, candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards have withdrawn their names in support of the DNC’s decision to punish the state for changing the date of its primary. Hillary Clinton could end up with the delegates should the DNC later reverse its decision and allow them to participate. But Michigan has an open primary, which means members of any party can choose to vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation — which means that some disenchanted Democrats will likely forego voting in the Democratic primary and throw their weight behind their favorite Republican. (John McCain is considered the most likely to benefit from this.)
Mohammed Abbadi, a Muslim resident of Detroit, told Arab News that not being able to vote for Edwards or Obama is exacerbating his feeling that his vote would make no difference. “I would like to back either Obama or Edwards but I don’t think that voting ‘uncommitted’ will mean anything,” he said.
On Dec. 10, the Michigan Democratic Party issued a press statement saying that the primary would in fact be held on Jan. 15 and that the ballot would only contain six names, including the Republican candidates and Hillary, the only Democrat on the ballot. The press statement also urged supporters of the four removed Democratic candidates to vote “uncommitted” and added that writing-in names of candidates would not be counted.
Elhadi said that voting for the right candidate is difficult when there are four Democratic candidates who all fall under the “Uncommitted” category. “I feel that Obama can relate to Muslims given his multicultural background, and Hillary would do a good job because of her previous experience in the White House alongside her husband for eight years,” he said, adding that he also feels that the Democratic candidates are the ones giving the most attention to issues the Muslim voters feel strongly about.
According to a survey conducted by the Michigan-based American Muslim Political Education Committee (AMPEC), the most crucial issue affecting the Muslim vote is the war on Iraq with results showing that 90 percent of participates polled answered that they consider the US invasion of Iraq as unjustified compared to 3 percent which say they agree with the US government’s decision of military action with 7 percent saying they were undecided.
US foreign policy was ranked the second most highly rated issue among Muslim American voters. When asked on the survey if they believe that America should do more to negotiate a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, 77 percent said they believe that a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a step in the right direction toward world peace; six percent said they disagreed; six percent said they strongly disagreed; eight percent had no opinion; and three percent offered no input.
“I don’t think you can put all American Muslims into one category, but I believe all Muslim Americans and Americans in general are tired of the way they have been stereotyped and how things are going in this country and are beginning to be willing to look at candidates positions and vote for the one who is most attentive to hearing their voices,” said Abbadi.
Making up roughly three percent of the Michigan population and accounting for 115,000 votes, US-based Islamic organizations and Muslim civil rights groups say that if given the proper awareness and motivation to get out and vote, Muslims in Michigan and across the nation could very well be able to sway the GOP nomination to the candidate that is the most willing to address their needs. A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has launched a website in efforts of increasing Muslim participation in the primaries and US election to be held in November later this year.
The website provides the latest news, opinions related to Muslims and elections nationwide in addition to the positions of presidential candidates on key issues, examples of anti-Muslim rhetoric from candidates of all levels of public office and links to the websites of Muslims running for public office. The website also contains a so-called Civic Participation Handbook that provides Muslim voters a step-by-step guide to holding voter registration drives to making the most of meetings with elected officials.
Speaking about the enthusiasm being received since the launch of the website, CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor said, “Each election cycle, America’s Muslims become better organized and more savvy about asserting our voice in our nation’s electoral dialogue and this is a community that is excited about the contributions our strong family values and foreign policy insights can make in changing the course of the nation.”
(Those wishing to visit the website can log on to www.cair2008election.com.)
