U.S. Elections To Be Observed By International Group

It was announced by the State Department that international observers will be coming in to monitor the Presidential election in November.

Here’s the background:

Florida 2000: A constitutional crisis began when the electoral system in the state of Florida broke down and the winner was unclear. Court challenges to the election began and the issue was finally decided the following month in the United States Supreme Court. George W. Bush was declared the winner (even though the media recount confirmed the results of Gore’s court-ordered recount) and the embarrassment of the election ended.

Fast forward to last month (July 2004): Thirteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives petitioned the United Nations to ask for international monitors to make sure that there will be no civil rights issues in the November 2004 election. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan rejected the appeal, saying that the Bush Administration had to make the request.

The Democratic delegation then asked Secretary of State Colin Powell and he took it under advisement. Powell asked the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to send in observers.

Now, this is not the first time the OSCE has sent observers here: they monitored the midterm 2002 elections and the California gubernatorial recall election. Over the last ten years, they’ve sent 10,000 observers to monitor 150 elections in 30 countries around the world, including Europe, the United States and other industrialized nations.

They monitored elections recently in Spain and in Northern Ireland.

This is nothing to get worked up about. With any amount of luck, they’ll be able to go home to their native countries and tell their countrymen that our elections are a model for the rest of the world to follow.