By Tangi Quemener

LOS ANGELES, Jun 13, 2009 (AFP) - A small group of Iranian exiles cast their votes at a makeshift polling station here Friday as protesters of the Tehran government condemned the election as a "sham."

More than 30 voting booths were set up across the United States on Friday to allow Iranians in the United States to have their say in elections.

In Los Angeles -- home to one of the largest populations of Iranians outside Iran -- voters headed to a conference room in a hotel next to Los Angeles International Airport.

Around a dozen people were seen queuing patiently to cast paper ballots as security guards kept reporters at bay.

One voter, Joe Mobarz, said he was casting his vote in the hope that the election would lead to improved ties between the government in Tehran and US President Barack Obama's administration.

"All elections are important, this one is very important because of the new Obama administration, they try to reach the Muslim countries, and we're hoping that this election opens a way to have a better relation between Iran and America," Mobarz said.

"That is why we vote, to say that we want negotiations on the table, not a war in the desert."

Parandeh Kia, a 48-year-old history scholar who has lived in the United States for more than three decades, said she was hoped her vote would help oust incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Democratic progress is gradual, step by step. Nothing is going to change if we don't start the process," she said.

Kia did not state her preferred candidate, stating only that she was voting "for change, not for Ahmadinejad."

Yet as Mobarz and Kia sought to influence Iranian politics through the ballot box, outside the hotel a group of protestors urged voters arriving at the hotel to boycott the elections.

"We cannot use the tools of the regime to change the regime itself," said Babak Namdar, a 31-year-old IT manager who moved to the United States in the late 1980s.

"It's a shame that they believe that with this sham election, they can make their voice heard," added Namdar, brandishing Iran's old national flag from before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Roxanne Ganji, a spokesman for Iranians in Los Angeles who want to see the return of monarchical rule in their homeland, said only "regime phonies" were voting in the election.

"It's not an election, it's a selection," Ganji said. "Every candidate is a candidate chosen by the supreme leader."

"All of these young people who have a scholarship from Iran, they go vote because they want their scholarship to continue. So they're only regime phonies going inside. No real patriot goes in there."

Ali, a 25-year-old Iranian studying in California, revealed he had voted for Ahmadinejad, saying his options amounted to a choice between "bad or worse."

"I chose the bad," he said.

tq/rcw/ch

Copyright AFP 2009.