I have been waiting for this situation to blow up ever since I received an email from Dkos about the OSCE (UN-affiliated election monitors) being asked to monitor 2012 U.S. elections due to expected voter intimidation at the polls. I have been waiting to see this reported on broadcast or PBS news(I don't have cable) but either missed it or nothing has been reported. So, tonight I decided to google 'OSCE to monitor U.S. elections', and pulled up several sites with stories related to this topic.
Scroll down below the squiggle to read about the depths to which we, as a divided nation, have sunk.
State of Texas
The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, has threatened to arrest international election monitors invited by liberal groups to observe the conduct of next month's presidential vote in states accused of attempting to disenfranchise minorities.
"The OSCE may be entitled to its opinions about voter ID laws, but your opinion is legally irrelevant in the United States, where the supreme court has already determined that voter ID laws are constitutional," Abbott said.
State of Florida
A Florida congressman running for the Senate, Connie Mack, also waded into the debate, saying that reports the United Nations wants to send election monitors was an outrage.
"The United Nations should be kicked off of American soil once and for all. And the American people should demand that the United Nations be stopped from 'monitoring' American elections. The only ones who should ever oversee American elections are Americans."
The OSCE via Latino-Fox News
The threat of criminal prosecution prompted outrage in Janez Lenarcic, the director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), who contacted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Abbott's letter.
“The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable,” Lenarcic said. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections. Our observers are required to remain strictly impartial and not to intervene in the voting process in any way. They are in the United States to observe these elections, not to interfere in them.”
This has the potential to get really ugly and potentially dangerous. Let's hope cooler heads will prevail.