A nine-hour haul to Omaha, trouble arranging time off work, and gas costs are blocking many southern Sudanese-Americans from voting in an election expected to divide Africa’s largest nation.

But at least 46 of the 400 or so who live in the Denver area registered, and community leaders on Tuesday teamed up to try to ensure that they cast ballots next week in the referendum to create a new oil-rich nation in southern Sudan.

“We don’t want to miss this chance,” said Gatwec Dengpathot, 28, running a meeting at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver to coordinate transportation.

A voting center in Omaha is the closest of eight in the U.S. The others are in Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Nashville, Tenn.; Phoenix; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.

Those who did not register in person in one of the eight cities between Nov. 16 and Dec. 8 “cannot vote — no exceptions,” said voting-center spokeswoman Christa Yoakum of the International Organization of Migration, hired by southern Sudan leaders to run the referendum.

As many as 16,000 voters are expected at a church rectory in Omaha, Yoakum said. There may be as many as 50,000 southern Sudanese in the U.S.

For 55 years, residents of southern Sudan have battled the government in Sudan’s mostly Muslim north. More than 2 million southerners were killed in two civil wars.

A 2005 cease-fire deal set up a Jan. 9-15 independence vote.

Denver resident Mary Obur wanted so desperately to cast a ballot that she cried when her thrift-store boss could not give her the time off. She and her children had fled bullets as government-backed raiders occupied their village, Akoba.

Her daughter, Nyadak Pal, 23, tried unsuccessfully to persuade the boss.

“Then I told my mom, ‘I’ll take your spot,’ ” said Pal, a Community College of Denver student aiming to become a trauma nurse. “It’s very upsetting to her that her company will not help her. She wanted to vote.”

A number of “Lost Boy” refugees were unable to register after their plan to rent a bus failed when the price proved too high. And at an Avis car-rental center near Denver International Airport, Sudanese employees still are struggling to persuade supervisors, said William Paul, 42.

“We’ve been fighting for 55 years,” Paul said. “This is only two days.”

If employers refuse, Sudanese-Americans should risk their jobs, limo-service owner Chol Ater, 49, advised at Tuesday’s meeting.

“This vote is very important. If you lose your job, you can get a new job,” he said. “But if you lose your country, it is very difficult to get it again.”

Bass player Magok Gany, 33, said he’ll give up a lucrative gig in Las Vegas to vote. “My heart is there,” he said, meaning Sudan.

Southern Sudanese immigrants, even those with U.S. citizenship, remain especially connected to their homeland, said organizer Dengpathot, who has studied political science at the University of Colorado and aspires to run for office one day in Sudan.

“We left our country not because we were looking for the good life,” he said. “It was because of civil war. So now, we are eager to have an independent country.”

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com