ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan — The Janabi cousins from Salahuddin province had already been waiting for five hours outside the polling station in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where they have lived since the Islamic State (IS) took over their city in 2014. They watched the voting station open at 7 a.m. and were still there at midday because, lacking the most recent electronic voting cards, they were not allowed to vote.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, Iraq still has more than 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been displaced since 2014, and their perceived inability to vote has led Sunni leaders to demand that the Iraqi parliamentary elections be postponed. Their request was refused and special polling stations were set up for those who fled the provinces of Ninevah, Kirkuk, Salahuddin and Anbar, both in the camps and in the cities where they have found refuge. Officials of the Independent High Electoral Commission announced that those who did not have the electronic voting card would be allowed to vote using their IDs and old voting cards, but many encountered problems on election day.

Yet while Iraq saw a historic low turnout of just over 44% and little enthusiasm for the May 12 vote, IDPs showed up in droves at the special voting stations, for instance in Erbil. The station where the Janabi cousins were refused was one of the few that ran out of ballot papers by the end of the day.

For the cousins, both in their 20s, being able to vote for their candidate was important, said Baha, leaning against a wall outside the crowded special voting station in the Mufti quarter in Erbil that welcomed IDPs like them but refused to accept their documents. “He has to give us a job,” Baha told Al-Monitor about the candidate for whom he was planning to give his vote. “He promised us, and he also promised to get us back into our homes.”