FREEDOM

"Al Ghizi's husband, Abbas, spent two years in jail in Iraq before leaving for Kuwait in 1986. He hasn't seen his family since. A generally happy man who is thrilled to be voting, he will talk about anything but what happened in jail. 'A lot of bad things happened to people in jail,' he said, and that's about it. 'They were hurting people all the time.' Why vote? 'I'm doing this for my people,' he responds. 'To be fully free, we need the right president. I've been in this country 13 years. I can do whatever I want. I want my people just like me. I can do something. I can buy something. I can vote for anybody.' "

- "They Drove 22 Hours for a Defining Moment," Maria L. La Ganga, LA Times, January 30