By HEATHER HADDON
HERALD NEWS 

Fears about the Dominican Republic's fragile economy and the spike in food prices there drove North Jersey residents to local polling sites Friday to help select the island nation's next president.

Clutching umbrellas and their Dominican identification cards, thousands of Passaic County residents poured into five voting locations in Passaic and Paterson. Local employees of the country's electoral commission ran the voting for Dominicans living outside of the country.

"The life is very difficult there," said Luis Roa, 49, of Paterson, after he cast his vote in the basement of the city's Iglesia Evangelica Reformada church on 22nd Avenue. "The food and the gas are so expensive."

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