Iraq's mark of freedom: Ink stains
Kurdish woman: 'This is the happiest day of my life'
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 Long oppressed by Saddam Hussein, Kurds vote in their first Iraqi election.
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BAQUBA, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi man named Saad proudly displayed his ink-stained finger on Sunday, after defying terrorist threats and voting in Iraq's first free election in half a century.
"We are defeating the terrorists as we are coming here," Saad said, pointing his index finger into the air. "We want to be and live like all people, like all human beings."
Saad is one of millions of Iraqis who braved the threat of insurgent attacks to take part in national elections in which voters selected a 275-member National Assembly that will choose the next president and two vice presidents, in addition to drafting the nation's constitution.
There were 14.2 million Iraqis eligible for the vote.
A Kurdish woman wearing a black scarf said simply, "This is the happiest day of my life."
On the day that insurgents said they would wash the streets with "voters' blood," more than a dozen election-day attacks were carried out Sunday, killing and wounding dozens.
But authorities hailed the election as a success, saying security measures prevented car bombings and other attacks that many had feared would mar the elections.
"This is the greatest day in the history of this country," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN.
He said voters had defied loyalists of Saddam Hussein and terrorist leaders Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden. "I think we have sustained a very big blow on them -- at least psychologically -- today," Al-Rubaie said.
Throughout Iraq, voters' fingers were marked with ink to prevent them from voting more than once.
At a voting center in Baghdad, one man dipped his son's finger in ink.
"This is our badge of pride," he said.
But the ink apparently served as a target for insurgents to attack. Near Baghdad's dangerous Haifa Street, attackers rounded up four voters who had left a polling station, identifying them by their ink-stained fingers, and killed them with grenades, Iraqi police said.
At some polls in Sunni Muslim strongholds, many election workers did not show up -- fearing insurgent attacks.
Voters nationwide said they were coming to defy the insurgency, to cast ballots for their nation's future and to take part in the first free elections of their lifetime. Many brought their entire families, and the general mood was one of celebration.
A sign on a wall in Baghdad read: "Don't live in fear."
In the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, 94-year-old Amina Mohammad Amin was carried to her poll via a wheelbarrow.
After waiting in line for an hour in Baghdad and casting his ballot, Omar Shukur Sa'id said, "Voting is a very good feeling. We want sovereignty and to get rid of injustice."
Another voter named Abbas traveled to his polling station with his wife and 7-year-old son. "First I was nervous because security is not stable," he said. "But we came anyway to put our votes in the boxes. These elections represent the people and decide our fate."
Election official Faryid Ayar said he was pleased with the turnout.
"I'd like to say the streets of Baghdad were not filled with blood as the threats of terrorist groups had mentioned," Ayar said.
He acknowledged that some attacks did occur -- as they do on an almost daily basis, but "they did not hamper the election process or hamper its progress."
The terrorists "directed a message to us: the message of killing. And we directed to them the message of elections and freedom and democracy," Ayar said.
U.N. election organizer Carlos Valezuela told CNN that while he was "happy with the turnout," it was too early to report numbers.
"I would rather until we have much better reporting to be able to come up with figures," he said.
CNN correspondents reported that turnout was sporadic across the nation after 30,000 polling booths opened at 7 a.m. on Sunday (11 p.m. ET Saturday) under the watchful eye of Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops. Voting ended at 5 p.m. (9 a.m. Sunday ET). (Full story)
In former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, polling stations were virtually empty. But in other parts of the country booths were packed with people casting their ballots.
In Baghdad alone, 15,000 U.S. soldiers were on patrol amid travel and weapons bans, and sealed airspace and borders. (Full story)
Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries, including the United States, had one last opportunity Sunday to cast votes, as the three-day window for out-of-country voting closed.
In addition to a National Assembly, voters were electing members of 18 provincial councils. Residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region were electing a Kurdish parliament.
Because of security concerns, names of the 7,000 candidates vying for office were not revealed until the final days of January.
Two broad-based parties -- the United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqi List -- were expected to lead the pack.
The United Iraqi Alliance is a Shiite-dominated slate of candidates backed by a leading cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While most of its support comes from the Shiite majority -- about 60 percent of the population -- the alliance also includes some smaller Sunni and Kurdish groups.
The Iraqi List is led by Allawi, who became the face of Iraqi government after sovereignty was restored in June.
Also likely to do well in the vote is the Kurdistan Alliance List, that includes the two main Kurdish political parties and nine smaller Kurdish parties.
Kurds make up less than 20 percent of the population, but they were expected to vote in large numbers because of a generally stable security situation in the northern part of the country, where they are concentrated.
Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein despite making up less than a quarter of the population, are likely to see an erosion in their political position after the vote.
Not only is the security situation tenuous in many Sunni areas, but also, two influential Sunni groups -- the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Association of Muslim Scholars -- are boycotting the elections.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Jane Arraf, Nic Robertson, Auday Sadeq and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
