Tikrit, Iraq ? Stuffing ballots into boxes by the fistful, citizens in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of massive compounds and narrow lanes joined millions of other Iraqis on Tuesday for a vote choreographed as a show of support for their leader.

“All Iraq is for Saddam. He is our leader and our father,” said one voter, showing off a ballot stamped “yes” in a thumbprint of blood.

Surface-to-air missile batteries and artillery outside Saddam’s hometown, Tikrit, underscored the other message in Iraq’s one-candidate presidential referendum: defiance of the United States in the face of possible war over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

“I came to put my paper in the box and to say I don’t want America to come here and to say I hate Bush because he wants to attack me,” Dr. Ahmed Jawad, a parasitologist, said in a village outside Tikrit.

Iraq projected more than 11 million of Saddam’s 22 million people would turn out for the referendum. The vote was a “yes” or “no” on Saddam’s staying president for another seven years and on continuing the coup-installed, three-decade reign of his party.

The White House dismissed the one-man race. “Obviously, it’s not a very serious day, not a very serious vote and nobody places any credibility on it,” press secretary Ari Fleischer said in Washington.

At home, Iraqis have spoken of besting Saddam’s 99.96 percent “yes” vote the last referendum in 1995. In the capital, Baghdad, Saddam’s Baath Party staged neighborhood drives to get out the vote with many projecting a 100 percent “yes” this time.

Iraqis push to cast their ballots at a polling station in Tikrit, President Saddam Hussein's home town. The presidential referendum will re-elect Saddam to another seven-year term.

Officials said results would be announced at a news conference this morning. In a vote run with little doubt about the outcome, however, it was impossible to tell whether announced turnout or results would have any relation to votes cast.

Iraq limited reporters to state-escorted stops at polling places. At one desert polling site, robed Bedouin tribesmen broke into ballot-waving dances and songs lauding Saddam when journalists rolled up in a bus.

Descending on the polling place from miles around in white Japanese pickup trucks instead of camels, the Bedouin told reporters they had been well-fed by authorities as they waited for the cameras.