The Unites States joins Belarus and the Ukraine in having her elections monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
OSCE.
The preliminary report of the group of election monitors indicates it expects trouble on Nov.2.
From the
Guardian:
Problems loom for the presidential election including voting equipment changes that could delay the outcome past Nov. 2, a group of international observers said Tuesday in a report.
``In general, the nationwide replacement of voting equipment, inspired by the disputes witnessed during the 2000 elections, primarily in Florida, may potentially become a source of even greater controversy during the forthcoming elections,'' said the 11-page report.
Many of the new touch-screen machines that will be used by up to 50 million voters on Nov. 2 do not produce the paper ballots needed for a manual recount of votes, the report said.
This ``may cause postelection disputes and litigation, potentially delaying the announcement of final results,'' it said.
The OSCE observers were in the United States from Sept. 7-10. A larger group will return for the election and focus on the potential problems noted in Tuesday's report. Among them:
-Slow implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which authorized $3.86 billion to replace outdated machines and reform election procedures.
-Poorly maintained voter registration lists and a hodgepodge of procedures for handling absentee and provisional balisenfranchisement and postelection litigation. Provisional ballots are a new feature, meant to allow anyone who shows up at the polls to vote even if their name isn't on precinct lists.
-The report criticized steps by states to allow military and overseas voters to fax rather than mail their completed ballots, calling them inconsistent ``with the principle of the secrecy of the vote.''
-The observers said the scale of complaints about intimidation of minority voters was difficult to assess but that ``such allegations were repeated by Democratic Party representatives, while the Republican Party officials did not seem to share these concerns.''
In 2000, I was following the U.S. Elections from Tanzania. After the Florida desaster, the Tanzanian "Guardian" came out with the headline: "U.S. joins the 3rd wolrd in Election mismanagement".
Though the U.S. embassy bombarded the Guardian with protest notes, this seems even more true now.