Americans who don’t care enough to vote should look at this week’s Iraqi election and be ashamed.

Americans wondering whether it’s worth their time to vote on Nov. 5 might consider asking the citizens of Iraq what they think.

The news out of Iraq last week was that 100 percent of the eligible voters had gone to the polls, and (what a surprise!) Saddam Hussein won. And he won not by a small margin but by unanimous decision, 11 million votes to zero.

Iraqis who went to the polls on Tuesday were asked to vote “yes” or “no” on whether Saddam should remain in office. Who would vote no? It wouldn’t matter anyway. With no explanation of how they were able to count all 11 million votes overnight, Iraqi officials simply announced that all 11,445,638 eligible voters in Iraq had cast their ballots in favor of Saddam.

The news surely made many American laugh. It should make them ashamed.

We live in a country in which we can cast our ballots without fear of reprisal to freely select leaders at all levels of government. And yet a large percentage of Americans don’t bother to register and vote. They apparently don’t think it’s important.

Is it important? Ask the people who “elected” Saddam Hussein.