Tens of thousands of Bay Area Iraqi immigrants are eligible to vote in the first independent election in their native country in 50 years, but most are likely to stay home because the closest polling place is 400 miles away, according to local Iraqi immigrants.

In fact, Bay Area Iraqis looking to participate in the fledging democratic experiment in the war-torn country must travel twice to Irvine, once this week to register and again at the end of the month to actually vote.

Monday, one Iraqi-American voter, Ashur Yoseph, set off for Los Angeles with his 71-year-old father, George. Seven hours later they were still en route to the polling place, stuck in "horrendous traffic," Yoseph said by phone.

"Tomorrow morning, we'll get up, go register to vote and then head home. In two weeks we'll do it all over again," said Yoseph, Mayor Gavin Newsom's point person for redevelopment at the Hunters Point shipyard. "I've got a lot of work to do. I'm not happy about it, but you've got to do what you've got to do."

Yoseph and other critics charge that the polling places for the Iraqi elections discriminate against Christian Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs, the indigenous people of Iraq who make up just 3 percent of the country's population, but about 80 percent of Iraqis living in California.

Out of the five polling places set up to handle the 240,000 Iraqi expatriates in the United States, the Irvine office is the only one west of the Mississippi.

"There was clearly a decision not to open offices where there is a majority of Iraqi Christians," said Wilfred Bet-Alkhas, a San Jose-based magazine editor.

"I would be very, very surprised if 10 percent get to vote," he said.

There are approximately 50,000 Iraqi Christians in California, half spread across the Bay Area and Central Valley, and half in San Diego, according to San Jose resident Jackie Bejan, spokeswoman for the ChaldoAssyrian Advocacy Council. Nashville, Tenn., one of the five cities with a voting office, has just 4,000 Iraqis, nearly all of them Kurds.