Foreign observers to audit election

Washington Times ^ | 8/07/04 | Joseph Curl

[kattracks]

The Bush administration has invited a team of international monitors to observe the U.S. presidential election in November, but the group will not come from the United Nations, as some congressional Democrats had urged.
    Assistant Secretary of State Paul V. Kelly, who handles legislative affairs for the department, affirmed the invitation this week in a letter to 13 House Democrats. They had requested U.N. monitors for this year's elections in an effort to avoid the charges of disenfranchisement and voting irregularities that plagued the 2000 election, the closest in history.
    The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the largest regional organization in the world with 55 participating nations, will monitor the U.S. election on Nov. 2. Members include Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and the United States.
     "OSCE members, including the United States, agreed in 1990 in Copenhagen to allow fellow members to observe elections in one another's countries," Mr. Kelly wrote. "Consistent with this commitment, the United States has already invited the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe the November 2, 2004, presidential elections."

[snip]

OSCE officials deployed an observer team to monitor the most recent U.S. elections, on Nov. 5, 2002.

[texastoo]

I found it without too much trouble. But I clicked so many times that I don't know exactly what I clicked. LOL

However, if you will go to the UN website and click on human events, then search for OSCE, you will find it. I hate to say it, but it is there.

[texastoo]

This is a part of the UN. Go to the UN website and click on human events, then their search engine to OSCE. The
Democrats won this one.

[Elkiejg]

A better idea is for every freeper to volunteer to work the polls - and take your camera with you.

[kattracks]

It's not part of the UN. It partners with many organizations. The UN is one , so is Nato.

[texastoo]

Are you saying that OSCE and ODIHR are not a part of the UN? NATO only has 26 members, so how is this NATO?

Anyway, to turn our elections over to any of these countries just sucks.

[SealSeven]

Personally, I don't like it one bit. Most of these countries are pro Kerry- I trust none of them and wouldn't be surprised if they cry foul to kerry's advantage. Its none of their da*n business what we do in our country.

[leadpenny]

Thanks. We'll have to see how this plays out and I'm sure we'll hear more about it. I don't care who looks at our system, I just don't like it when a bunch of goofballs in congress start demanding it to gain political points with their bush-hating constituents.

[Condor51]

They were invited by the US administration weren't they??

NO, the State Department announced it would allow observers. Never confuse the Administration with the State Dept. They're two separate animals with diametrically opposed agendas.

IMO the 'State Dept' should be on it's own list of terrorist organizations!

Joe McCarthy was right, the State Dept was and still IS full of communists

[Condor51]

I said this before when the UN observer thing was first published and I'll state it again - as fact.

If on election day I find one of these observers in my polling place I will REMOVE their 3rd world butt ASAP from the premises, and forcibly if required.

And I will do this as my right as a US citizen, as I have never ceded to any member of the UN or the 'State Dept' my rights to vote in an election free from "foreign influence".

Naturally I will do this AFTER I vote, as making bail for assault and battery can be time consuming

[traumer]

Reporting from FLORIDA...

[reformedliberal]

Look:

These same people monitored the 2002 elections and the findings were that 87% of voters had no problems at all. I read that Albanians were in one of the northern Midwestern states. I hope it was South Dakota, but I don't recall. It did not impair our sovereignty.

This is not a betrayal. Every country participating in the monitoring is a western-style democracy. They can see w/their own eyes how the electorate behaves and how voting is done and they will talk to their anti-American media. This is international relations at its highest level, short circuiting the *fraud* and *stolen votes* claims.

In 2000, the world saw our system work. No Constitutional Crisis, as they all predicted, but a legal remedy, even if it was contentious.

Every nation on earth has vote fraud problems. We do, too. By bringing in allies, we open our system to the light of day. No one can say that Republicans are intimidating voters w/international observers. Hordes of people w/video cameras ARE intimidating. W/PhotoShop and other programs, any film record may be altered to show anything at all.

While we will have poll watchers from our party and lawyers on call in case of problems, in all-Donk precincts, we get accused of being troublemakers and voting is held up and made impossible by the Donks at every turn.

Even with the fraud problems, the majority of precincts have no problems at all. In mine, we still use pencils and paper and 6-8 people work the polls at any given time. In one local school referendum election, we had a dispute over one vote that decided the issue. The voter had changed their vote and the erasure was incomplete, making it a spoiled ballot w/2 visible votes on it. A citizen paid for an attorney and the voting was redone by court decision. This time, the election was decided, again by the one vote.

If Bush had said no to observers this time, after having them in last time, the Donks would be screaming. This way, he just waited for them to grandstand and then re-invited the observers. This shuts up the Donks, but the observers are not in their pocket.

If you want to give up your franchise, that is your decision. But the administration is far more subtle than the Donks and the observers are not going to harm anything at all, just as they didn't harm anything in 2002, when the Republicans won massively at all levels of government, all across the country and there were no outcries of stolen elections, except for South Dakota around the Indian reservations. Note we belong to this organization and there wil be Americans with each group.

Rather than sit home and sulk in high dudgeon, why not take the day off and volunteer thru the campaign for poll watching. Do it now, so you can get the training. Then, you can watch the international observers, yourself and see just what *betrayal* does or doesn't take place.You can vote absentee if you get your ballot in time.

[Eva]

I am told that it is illegal to photograph at polling places. I laughed when Michael Moore claimed that he was going to be in Florida with his camera, monitoring polling places, because he can't do it.

[traumer]

One volunteer reporting 'for duty'

[Ron in Acreage]

A pure violation of our sovereignty.(sp)?

[Gunrunner2]

It is galling the very idea that I will be observed as I enter to cast my vote, and observed and possibly "interviewed" by some UN toadie that wouldn't know a fair election process if it bit him on the butt.

We are the US, we ARE fair elections!

[Gunrunner2]

>>Our system may not be great but it's the best the world has to offer. Why not show it off?<<

Great. . .but the idea of observers was sold on the premise that our elections are somehow not fair, not on the premise that they should watch in order to learn how to conduct fair elections.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. if the President had already been looking into it for "training purposes" .. the petty liberals sent the letter in order to give them an issue .. which Bush promptly took away from them.

Don't ever play poker with the President. Dems never learn.

[Hildy]

Everyone has cellphones. Put a phone in every polling station and if anyone has a problem, call the SOS or the media. That's that. This is such a fake issue I want to scream.

[texastoo]

I am not going to dispute your post point by point. However, the example of a local election and using our courts was excellent. That is the American way.

I glanced back at a thread regarding the Democrats call for UN observers and the outrage felt by Republicans and conservatives on this site. There were over 200 hits denouncing this.

Now, since GW Bush has called them foreign observers is it OK? Go to the UN website and click on human rights then search for ODIHR or OCSE. Both of theses organizations are UN organizations. Bush just didn't go to the main body of the UN. He went to the organizations of the UN that specialize in elections. It is still the UN.

[texastoo]

It may be illegal to take photographs at the polls. I don't know for sure.

Now, we are bringing in UN foreigners to oversee our elections. I guess this is legal.