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WaTi: Foreign teams set to monitor balloting
About 60 mainly European election observers have taken up their posts in six states, including Florida and Ohio, saying they hope their presence will serve as a "preventative to the shenanigans" during voting tomorrow. "We will tell the people of Ohio whether their election is free and fair," said one of the observers, Hugo Coveliers, a Belgian senator who plans to monitor voting in Cleveland. I'd like to see this mother go to Cincinnati and say that. Even in Cleveland, I think there's a good chance he'll learn the difference between a laceration and a contusion     But many of the parliamentary observers sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are here to learn about the American electoral experience as much as to monitor it. That's a much safer story     Several sat up straight during a lecture late last week by former Republican National Committee Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf when he talked about wedge issues and how to concentrate resources where they will produce the most ballots. "That's not a bad idea," whispered one Eastern European observer to a colleague. "This may be useful next year." Wait till he gets to the part about hanging Chad.     The observers all are legislators who have volunteered to observe the U.S. elections at the request of the OSCE, a 55-member alliance founded in 1975 to foster East-West cooperation and monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords. The Bush administration issued the invitation only reluctantly, and the presence of the Europeans has angered many Americans, who see it as an infringement of U.S. sovereignty. I didn't know Bush invited them. Dumb.        The OSCE rules do not allow observers to do much more than make sure that local rules are followed. If they see someone burning ballots in the alley, they are not permitted to interfere. Nor are they supposed to criticize the army of lawyers, negative advertising or simplistic campaign speeches that many of them seem to find jarring. Nevertheless, the observers hope their presence will serve as a "preventative to the shenanigans," said Mr. Coveliers, the Belgian senator. "What [the voters] can be sure about is, if there are obvious shortcomings, an international organization of 55 countries will declare there are shortcomings."
Aris may be en route as we sleep!     The Russians and Kazakhs must monitor elections within driving distance of Washington because their governments cannot afford to fly them around the United States, according to Vitaly Evseyev, a Russian official with the OSCE. Someone should tell them about JetBlue     There are few concerns about voting plans in North Carolina and Virginia, he added, "but they really want to experience a U.S. election. They're not here to look for trouble." That's good, cause they wouldn't have much trouble finding it in those places.     "It would be impossible to spend that much money in Switzerland," They must not have television marveled Cleveland observer Barbara Haering, a full-time environmental lawyer and member of Switzerland's part-time parliament, "probably because we are not allowed to advertise on television. Yup " Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-01 |
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