I voted in Turkey today and made the news

I woke up early, read the paper, and learned that I had one last chance to participate in the U.S. primaries.

This is the first year that Democrats Abroad has arranged for an online global primary, meaning that U.S. citizens living abroad can vote via Internet, fax, mail, and in person in 34 countries. I heard about this back in December but didn’t take it seriously until I read this morning that Democrats Abroad has state-status and sends 22 delegates to the convention.

I missed the cut-off for voting online, but the polls opened at 9 this morning in a hotel near our apartment and I walked there in time to be the very first voter.

The media was waiting

There were four people from Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s biggest news agency, waiting for someone to show up, and since that was me, I suddenly had a cameraman and several photographers shooting me filling out the ballot. When I was ready to submit the ballot they had me pose at the box for about a minute while they snapped shots. After this a reporter did a brief interview with me in Turkish about why I was in Turkey and who I voted for. I told her Obama and she asked why. If they put any of the interview on the news tonight I bet they’ll use this part because I mentioned Obama’s stance on Iraq, which should be popular in Turkey (but has been overshadowed here by his position on the Armenian issue). Anyway, this agency sells their stories to all sorts of news outlets so I’m going to keep my eye out for the story.

Election results will be announced next Tuesday, though CNN is expected to call it incorrectly on Monday.