The Bush Administration -- more particularly the State Department -- has had the unmitigated gall and audacity to request the United Nations to send international UN inspectors to the US to "monitor" the November Presidential elections. The invitation was at the behest of 13 Democratic members of Congress who have insisted that the 2000 election fiasco was nothing short of a "coup d'état"
Now, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 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.The move by the members of Congress was spearheaded by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Moonbat-TX)."OSCE members, including the United States, agreed in 1990 in Copenhagen to allow fellow members to observe elections in one another's countries," 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."
Johnson was joined by members of the Congressional Black and Progressive Caucuses on the Hill, each of whom insisted that "disenfranchised" voters in a number of states, most notably Florida, cost Democratic candidate Al Gore a victory in the 2000 election, the closest election ever.
The group initially asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan directly, but was rebuffed by the organization, whose stated that a request of that type could only come from the government in question.
Johnson's group then lobbied the State Department, who has acquiesed to the request.
On one hand, this will show that the US government is completely above board and that the fears of the moonbats both inside and outside this country are completely baseless, but on the other hand, this validates the idiotic rantings of moonbats like Johnson and her crew.
Whoever introduced "Political Correctness" into not only the vernacular; but also reality should be drawn and quartered! Yielding to the Untied Notions, Demoncrats, liberals and those who seek nothing more than the destruction of our Nation can leave a bad taste in one's mouth. (Lewinskitis)
Those who have President Bush's ear may be "damned if they do;" "damned if they don't."
Ain't life grand!
Posted by: Sergeant America at August 9, 2004 12:15 PMThis whole thing is a national embarassment. We can send a man to the moon, but we can't cast a vote without screwing things up. Solution: bring in some Eurocrats!
Posted by: Beck at August 9, 2004 01:22 PMOSCE is NOT the UN! They have watched elections here before, also. Perhaps this will deter the dems from buying votes from bums with cigarettes this year.
Really, I don't see it as a negative.
Posted by: Deb at August 9, 2004 02:01 PMRaul Grijalva of Arizona is one of the 13. His disenfranchised voters are the immigrants who do not respect our entry laws and are thus not able to make their voices heard.
Posted by: Joel (No Pundit Intended) at August 9, 2004 02:23 PMNot the UN. The calls for UN monitoring were neatly undercut by having a group that is NOT the UN, that has done it before, come back again.
Not the UN.
It's possible the move still sucks, or not, but the international body involved is not the UN.
Posted by: Jay Solo at August 9, 2004 05:55 PMOne of the OSCE's closest partners is the United Nations. Co-operation was inititated in 1992, when the participating States declared the OSCE (at that time CSCE) to be "a regional arrangement in the sense of Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations".
A Framework for Co-operation and Co-ordination between the United Nations Secretariat and the CSCE was agreed upon in May 1993. The United Nations gave the CSCE observer status at the UN in the same year.
(snip)
Source - www.osce.org
_______
Semantics aside; partners are as partners do....(:shrug:) Let's say "Group Think?"
FWIW, Vienna is way too close to New York!
SA
Posted by: Sergeant America at August 9, 2004 10:09 PMI'm here in Texas and my voter registration card doesn't show what my race is. And, if it did, I would have something to say about it.
Dr. King was already gone by the time I was born, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that he had inspired were already in place, so I've never seen systemic disenfranchisement of black American voters. It may be naivete or worse, but I can't see an upside to even trying to keep qualified black citizens from voting. Who would risk such a thing? How would you do it, anyway, in an age of no-excuse absentee voting and early voting? Are polling stations in predominantly black communities really susceptible to roadblocks and checkpoints that last all 12 hours of Election Day? Is it evidence of a GOP plot that election judges and workers may be poorly trained or incompetent? Some counties and precincts simply don't operate as efficiently or as honestly as others. That could be the fault of the Democrats who run the show there, as was seen repeatedly in Floriduh four years ago.
This is the truth: any American who is not disqualified on the basis of either his criminal/psychiatric record, age, or citizenship is eligible to vote. All he has to do is make sure he's registered and then execute a ballot at election time. There's no poll taxes or grandfather clauses or any other bar to the franchise. Even in the event of a clerical error that indicates that a voter is ineligible to vote in a given precinct, a ballot can still be cast and held in dispute until it can be resolved.
Ignorance and apathy are disenfranchisement enough. Claiming to find it elsewhere is excuse-making.
Posted by: Toby Petzold at August 10, 2004 04:08 AMOutrageous.
Posted by: La Shawn at August 10, 2004 11:13 AMMy SIL was in Florida during the last presidential election. Some of the things that went on were foul.
The thing is, it happens all over the country. This is the time where it "counted" and it was on display for all to see.
The "observer" thing is over kill. But if it takes away a club, who cares? It's meaningless.
Posted by: DarkStar at August 10, 2004 08:47 PMI welcome the idea, I APPLAUD the move. It's the Democrat precincts that have a problem counting votes, and when that happens Republicans lose(Duh...). If this group is trully independent, bring it on, Republicans will need all the help they can get to keep the Democrat cheats from stealing this one.
Posted by: Vanyogan at August 10, 2004 09:04 PMIt's the Democrat precincts that have a problem counting votes
Not true actually.
Absentee ballots are notorious for having problems, and that's heavily Republican favored.
Posted by: DarkStar at August 10, 2004 09:32 PMI believe Vanyogan was specifically referring to Florida 2000, which you, DarkStar, were also talking about. The counties that the Gore campaign wanted to recount were counties where, if any official skulduggery were going to take place, there were only Democrats there to allow it or carry it out.
But Gore was only interested in increasing his vote total, not in making sure every voter had his or her say.
Posted by: McGehee at August 11, 2004 09:03 AM