SYDNEY, Australia — Iraqi expatriates began casting ballots in Sydney, several jostling to be among the first to vote in Iraq's first independent elections in more than 50 years.

Amid tight security at a converted furniture warehouse, young children mingled with elderly Kurdish women in head-to-toe black robes.

"This is a long dream that now comes true," said 56-year-old Karim Jari before casting his vote. "We hope this is a new beginning."

Australia is one of 14 nations where Iraqis living outside their country can vote — and the first country in the world to begin collecting ballots because of its time zone. In Iraq, the vote is Sunday; elsewhere, it runs today through Sunday.

Polls in Iraq open at 7 a.m. Iraq time (8 p.m. Saturday PST).

Far fewer Iraqis are expected to vote in the United States than organizers had hoped.

About 10 percent of eligible voters in the United States signed up to vote during the nine-day registration period — 25,946 of the estimated 240,000 eligible, according to the Washington office of the Iraq-Out-of-Country Voting Program. The numbers were higher elsewhere — 13 percent in France, 16 percent in Australia, 30 percent in Canada and 50 percent in Denmark, the program said.

Confusion about voter eligibility requirements and long travel distances for registration and voting may have discouraged many, officials said. Organizers of the overseas vote twice extended the timeframe for voter registration to help boost turnout.

The low numbers also have been attributed to fears of violence or reprisals and conflicts with the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, which coincides with the yearly hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The balloting will be held through Sunday at centers in the metropolitan areas of Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit and Nashville, Tenn. Monique De Groot, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, which organized the voting program, defended the locations of the voting sites, saying that more than 60 percent of Iraqis in the United States lived in or very close to the five cities.

At the California location at Irvine, halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, only 3,903 Iraqis registered. More than 100 Iraqi immigrants from the Puget Sound area were expected to vote there.

About two dozen people jostled to be among the first to vote at 7 a.m. in Australia (noon PST yesterday).

Rebwar Aziz, 38, who has lived in Australia since 1992, got the honor.

"This is freedom for Iraqi people," the bus driver said.