The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) already has a 500-person delegation slated to monitor America’s process. It should crank up those numbers significantly, especially since OSCE recently raised concerns around November’s “most challenging” election.
America’s 2020 presidential election process is in question at home, too. Even before the first vote has been cast, both parties are challenging the outcome.
President Trump regularly raises the specter of mail-in fraud and illegal votes. Hillary Clinton has warned Joe Biden not to concede on Election Night, when exit polls, overzealous pols, or online reporting might declare a premature or pre-emptive Trump victory.
Clearly, the stage is set for one of the nastiest post-election moments in U.S. history. Even—especially—during a pandemic. Now is the time for all good nations to come to the aid of our country.
America has actively engaged in this nonpartisan work abroad, with both the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) upholding high electoral expectations. International election observers coming to the United States this year should closely follow IRI and NDI standards and practices.
Atlanta’s Carter Center is frequently on the international election monitoring circuit, having observed 111 elections in 39 countries since 1989. Its check on foreign electoral behavior brought to light, for example, issues in the “deeply flawed” process in Nicaragua’s 2011 elections.
As a foreign correspondent, I, too, have been an overseas election observer. First, in Hungary in 1990 and later that year in Czechoslovakia. In Prague, I followed presidential candidate Václav Havel’s campaign during that country’s first free elections in 44 years. I met voters in the capital and in the less glamorous countryside, far from Prague’s medieval castle-and-storybook Old Town, in places with polluting heavy industry and few employment prospects.
M00n on September 4th, 2020 at 11:59 UTC »
And no Trump, you cannot choose Russia to monitor our elections. I mean, more than they are already.
dustinwayner on September 4th, 2020 at 11:31 UTC »
I was born and raised in the reddest of red states. Lowest populations,guns, coal, you get the idea. In my lifetime 5 elections went to democratic presidential candidates. The first I was still happily filling diapers (1976) so I do not know the reactions. 1992 and 1996 there was grumbling and gloom and doom (1996 was my first time voting presidential). 2008 and 2012 was when I started seeing the true colors of friends family and classmates. They were incredulous that a black man (I’ve scrubbed the wording ) could win not once but twice, there had to be a fix, I mean he wasn’t even American or Christian amirite? If 2020 does not go their way I have heard talk of protest and civil war. What I guess I am trying to get to is that even with observers a certain segment of our population will not accept it. There are so many far right agitators out there that do not believe in or trust any international organization.
Edit: thank you kind stranger for the award.
Tuxedosam_offical on September 4th, 2020 at 10:59 UTC »
Does anyone else recall how the Carter Foundation used to monitor elections in other countries? The former first couple and their foundation workers would be pictured standing with the official looking clipboard and kindly looking on... I remember how, as a kid, that used to make me feel proud of my country - like we are such pros at free and transparent elections, we’ve exported it, or at least the idea... What shame I feel at the current state of things.