| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Wake up and Rant: Global monitors find faults |
| 2004-11-03 |
| EFL, really! MIAMI The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices. The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system. "To be honest, monitoring elections in Serbia a few months ago was much simpler," said Konrad Olszewski, an election observer stationed in Miami by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "They have one national election law and use the paper ballots I really prefer over any other system," Olszewski said. We should change our system to make it simpler for Europeans? Riiight. Formation of the U.S. election mission came after the It's none of your f'n busines. Speaking as voting began at 7 a.m. in the Firefighter's Memorial Hall for precincts 401 and 446 of Miami-Dade County, the observers drew sharp distinctions between U.S.-style elections and those conducted elsewhere around the world. "Unlike almost every other country in the world, there is not one national election today," said Gould, who has been involved in 90 election missions in 70 countries. "The decentralized system means that rules vary widely county by county, so there are actually more than 13,000 elections today." We call thad fed-er-al-ism. Get used to it. |
| Posted by:Mrs. Davis |
| #5 that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela Maybe because we have better software? Besides, don't you have to kill trees to get paper ballots? that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia Buddy, it's called having "candidates". You know, more than one person running? Yeah, too friggin' complex, but that's the way we like it... |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-11-03 1:51:29 PM |
| #4 Media relations has become a major part of their mission I'm thinking that was the only part of their mission... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-11-03 1:21:30 PM |
| #3 U.S. to Euro MIND YOUR OWN GODDAM BUSINESS!!! STFU and FOAD. Socialist elite assholes. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-11-03 1:11:50 PM |
| #2 I think requiring a fingerprint as well as a signature to get a ballot, and requiring complete re-registration every four years would do a lot to clear out the fraud in the system. And if the deadbeat dads are too intimidated to show up, that's a feature, not a bug! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-11-03 11:26:44 AM |
| #1 We generally monitor other elections if requested, mainly because we have a couple of centuries experience of what shenanigans are possible in a given system. If there's a crooked way to undetectably fix an election, it's an odds-on bet that an American invented it. Bob Mugabe ain't got nothin' on Frank Rizzo and Richard (Da Mayor) Daley. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-11-03 10:31:49 AM |