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Europeans To Monitor American Voters
shonagon53 writes "The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy. But since the Florida 2000 fiasco, things have changed.
Europe's famous Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) will now be monitoring the U.S. elections. The institution normally monitors elections in third world countries in transition, and in crisis areas or regions where civil wars have destabilized the political process. In november, the OSCE will be monitoring local and state elections in Kazakhstan, Skopje, Eastern Congo, Ouagadougou and... the United States.
As
the BBC reports, for some Americans this comes as a humiliation; others see it as a necessity, since they have lost trust in the American election process."
As in the Columbia Spectator...
... to observe the course of their national election proceedings."
The OSCE was actually invited by the State Department (unlike the attempted invitation of the United Nations by Democrats in the House) and has observed elections in the US before, such as during the 2002 mid-terms and the California gubernatorial race. Indeed, the former Bush, in 1990, signed the Copenhagen Document which stated that signers (such as the US) may "invite observers from any other [OSCE] participating States
The fact that the country did not break into civil war is because we ARE a model democracy.
This applies whether you agree with the outcome of the election or not.
The idea that a close vote means that we're unstable is ridiculous. There are rules and regulations for these scenarios and they were followed. Unfortunately, a few were added as well (ah hem, hanging chads), but all hell did NOT break loose and the results were LAWFULLY established.
This story explains why it is the OSCE that has been invited to do the job and not the UN, which is more common. Of course it has to do with the US congress where mentioning the two letters U.N. is worse than mentioning the four letters f.u.c.k.
As a European living in the US, I remember that back in 2000 I mentioned to my friends using UN elections monitors for the next election, after which I was verbally lynched for about an hour.
Apparently not a popular idea :)
OSCA was asked by the US to come. They where invited.
OSCA has a policy to always accept these invitations.
Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton were both minority presidents (did not carry majority of popular vote). George Washington was elected unopposed.
People think things like that are funny. They also think that they are voting directly for a particular pair of candidates, when in fact they are merely recording their preference for President and Vice President. The U.S. has never had a directly elected president. The Federal government is a creature of the states, and the state governments elect the chief executive of the federal government that they created together.
Currently, many states apportion their votes in a winner-take-all manner. A few apportion them according to the popular vote. States can, however, apprtion their votes pretty much however they want. Don't like it? Talk to your state legislature.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Skopje and Ouagadougou are the capitals of Macedonia and Burkina Faso, respectively. Kazakhstan is a country. There are two Congos: the Republic of the Congo (formerly French Middle Congo), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which lies just to the east. Eastern DROC borders Rwanda, where there was a massive genocide 10 years ago.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Europe isn't trying to embarass the USA. The OSCE was *invited*. In fact, it's not even truly a European organisation. It may be based in Vienna, but it's members include not only Europe, but parts of Asia, Canada, and the USA.
Fox says: Responding to a request from 13 Democratic congressmen and the State Department, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (search) will be sending a group to make sure the United States holds a fair election in November.
So this is a self-inflicted slap in the face. It often happens in European democracies, to invite outside observers to elections.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
No, actually the OSCE were asked by Secretary of State Colin Powell to monitor the election. Furthermore, this isn't the first election in the U.S. they have monitored.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
In fact, that's why we signed the agreement to have this done almost a decade ago. Contrary to the politically motivated suggestions otherwise, this was _not_ a response to 2000 election. We wanted to place monitors in other countries and got a response back something like, "Why don't you take monitors if you're so keen on this" and we said "sure".
Ooops. You forgot the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Although it was a bloodless revolution, having the king overthrown isn't exactly a good example of stability (or democracy)! From that point on England itself has been pretty stable - although the composition of Great Britain/the UK has seen quite a few changes (the last big one being independence for most of Ireland in 1922).
Of course, there's the question of how democratic you have to be to count - few people had the vote in 1688. With each set of legislation from the Bill of Rights in 1689 to the last major overhaul of the franchise in 1928, England/Britain/the UK became more and more democratic, but I'm not sure whereabouts the line would be drawn saying "properly democratic from this point on."
Anyway, England definitely beats the US in terms of long-term stability, but the rest is up for discussion.
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
Bill Clinton won the popular vote. He simply didn't win more than 50% of the popular vote. He got 45% or whatever, and the other side got 40% or whatever.
It's not the same situation at all. Quite a lot of presidents don't win the majority, very few of them don't win the popular vote.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Well, I live in Georgia and can understand why our elections should be monitored. In the 2002 elections, we were the first state to have entirely switched over to Diebold elctronic voting machines. That election, Sen. Max Cleland and Gov. Roy Barnes were expected to win judging from polls immediately before the election. Curiously, the Republican Saxby Chamblis won the Senate race and Sonny (serously) Perdue won the race for Governor. To be quite honest, I don't think that they stole the election; there are other reasons the polls could've swung so rapidly. Still, I can't help but wonder sometimes whether our elections were a "test" case for public acceptance of anomolous electronic voting machine results.
harmonious design
This is the most misleading Slashdot article I have ever read.
If you actually look at their site they are also monitoring elections in France, Canada, Greece, Spain, and Australia. Hardly "third world countries", and I don't remember any recent civil wars in them either.
It is not rocket science, and with at least four people and two (usually opposing) agendas involved, the chance of a 'parity error' getting past is lower that the chance of a parity error read off of the RAM inside your computer. 100% ? Maybe not, but certainly more that four nines. Your suggestion of a 99% accuracy rate from machines is a red herring.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Jeez, how hard is it to do some fact checking before posting things like that?
Haider was never PM of Austria, his party was a member of the ruling coalition though in 2000, and he is governor of the state of Carinthia. Read wikipedia entry to get some details.
Haider is an avowed anti-EU politician. In 2000 some EU member countries did impose limited diplomatic sanction on Austria. In this case this meant cancelling of visits, recall of ambassadors, etc, and had zero direct economic consequence. I.e this was a gesture of disapproval, and yes any country is entitled to do that, this is was diplomacy is all about. Israel did exactly the same BTW.
FYI Haider is a neo-Nazi revisionist. For once you'd like Europeans to do something when people like Haider get too close to actually governing a country. You remember the last time the European did nothing?
Nice double standards you've got there.
http://www.davekopel.org/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits -in-Fahrenheit-911.htm#2000_Election_Night Florida Purge of Convicted Felons from Voter Rolls Deceit 4 According to Fahrenheit, Bush cronies hired Data Base Technologies to purge Florida voters who might vote for Gore, and these potential voters were purged from the voting rolls on the basis of race. ("Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman. And that her state has hired a company that's gonna knock voters off the rolls who aren't likely to vote for you. You can usually tell 'em by the color of their skin.") As explained by the Palm Beach Post, Moore's suggestion is extremely incomplete, and on at least one fact, plainly false. The 1998 mayoral election in Miami was a fiasco which was declared void by Florida courts, because--in violation of Florida law--convicted felons had been allowed to vote. The Florida legislature ordered the executive branch to purge felons from the voting rolls before the next election. Following instructions from Florida officials, Data Base Technologies (DBT) aggressively attempted to identify all convicted felons who were illegally registered to vote in Florida. There were two major problems with the purge. First, several states allow felons to vote once they have completed their sentences. Some of these ex-felons moved to Florida and were, according to a court decision, eligible to vote. Florida improperly purged these immigrant felons. Second, the comprehensive effort to identify all convicted felons led to a large number of false positives, in which persons with, for example, the same name as a convicted felon, were improperly purged. Purged voters were, in most cases, notified months before the election and given an opportunity to appeal, but the necessity to file an appeal was in itself a barrier which probably discouraged some legitimate, non-felon citizens from voting. According to the Palm Beach Post, at least 1,100 people were improperly purged. The overbreadth of the purge was well-known in Florida before the election. As a result, election officials in 20 of Florida's counties ignored the purge list entirely. In these counties, convicted felons were allowed to vote. Also according to the Post, thousands of felons were improperly allowed to vote in the 20 non-purging counties. Analysis by Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh, dissenting from a report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, suggests that about 5,600 felons voted illegally in Florida. (The Thernstrom/Redenbaugh dissent explains why little credit should be given to the majority report, which was produced by flagrantly ignoring data.) When allowed to vote, felons vote approximately 69 percent Democratic, according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Therefore, if the thousands of felons in the non-purging 20 counties had not been illegally allowed to vote, it is likely that Bush's statewide margin would have been substantially larger. Regardless, Moore's suggestion that the purge was conducted on the basis of race was indisputably false. As the Palm Beach Post details, all the evidence shows that Data Base Technologies did not use race as a basis for the purge. Indeed, DBT's refusal to take note of a registered voter's race was one of the reasons for the many cases of mistaken identity. DBT's computers had matched these people with felons, though in dozens of cases they did not share the same name, birthdate, gender or race...[A] review of state records, internal e-mails of DBT employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted. Records show that DBT told the state it would not use race as a criterion to identify felons. The list itself bears that out: More than 1,000 voters were matched with felons though they were of different races. The appeals record supports the Palm Beach Post's findings.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
A contemporary French constitutionalist once said "The genius of the framers of the US constitution is how they at once, in a single document, gave the power to the people and took it away from them"
We DO have systematic problems with our democracy...and having some outside help might get things fixed. After all, the Florida situation is an excellent example of how "steeped" our system is. Let's face it, in most states the elections are run by the "old biddy" crowd, politically active, people that have "all day" to meander out to vote. I know in my state that we have "little" elections all the time for really small things. [city, county, state] It makes it hard for "working class" people to keep up with all the issues...so things like school milages and more local things get a "fixed" election by skirting under the radar and if the media doesn't like the issues they just "forget" to publisize it!!! Keeping that in mind, when you get to a national election every 4th year you go to vote and find all sorts of petty "procedural" changes... so you end up a the wrong polling place [changed after 5 years!] or find your name on some "list" [so you could vote, but not THIS time], or because of historically low turn out they don't print enough ballots [but that IS the fault of populace not voting enough!!!]
Either way, the florida election had many of these situations all at once! Of course the national media did "create" the mess by suddenly putting the "whole" election on florida which caused tons of people that normally wouldn't have voted to turn out...to a system designed to "weed by technacality". The media made it a "hot spot" then put on all the activist lawyers & preacher to point out how unfair the whole thing was. The "impropeiety" occurred mostly because very few of the "officals" knew the proper rules to follow, so they started "making them up" under the glut of voters and outside pressure. Combine with crappy voter ballots [again a small "systematic" jab at "stupid" people] it only made things worse.
On top of everything else, NOBODY FOLLWED THE RULES of the election process... not the Florida counties, the state election office, or even the lawyers who argued in the supreme court!!! The electoral college was created for just such purpose!
The Electoral College was created by the constitution because the framers didn't trust a "national" election for the very reasons that we saw in florida in 2000!!! The USA is a federated republic....not a democracy!!! The Federal Government is not SUPPOSED to represent the needs of the PEOPLE, but the needs of the states!!! That was the REAL reason for the Civil War [The northern states with all the population were feeling "moral" and stepping on the southeren state's way of life using Federal laws. but that got lost in all the religous slavery speeches] The USA federal government is supposed to be "elected" by your already elected officals. That's one reason it was created so very limited in scope versus what we have now. The only "popular" elections gauranteed in the Constitution were for House represenatives. Senators were supposed to represent the state govenments directly..."ambasadors to the federal govt" if you will. Senators were supposed to be your state offical's direct voice in congress...think of the wide spread ramifications of THAT change...do you think "patriot" would have gotten thru a wiser board of state governers? [or many of the pettty spending bills for that matter!]
The electoral college was created to be a third process outside the state govt or popular election. Again, thru voter laziness, the "well-doers" wanted popular election for everything... and that's just not the case. There's no constitutional provisioning for how a state chooses electors!!!! yep, read it again, there's NO constitutional provision for how the state chooses electors!!! Think again how the system has been perverte
Worst of all, the person who posted this story doesn't even realize he is living in a republic. It may have a lot of democratic processes, especially at the state level, but it's first and foremost a republic.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Switzerland managed to be incredibly stable in war torn Europe retaining its current form since 1848.
You're believing Michael Moore about this, aren't you? This is one of his many lies. Witnesses on the spot have a different story.
Spread your disinformation elsewhere. Here's a video that shows every instant from the moment Anderew Card whispered in Bush's ear until Bush got out of his chair.
2nd Google fun fact of the day. Many people from Iceland believe there country is the oldest democracy because their first parliament was founded in the year 930.
In any case, I expect Bush to be able to stand on his own. The fact that he couldn't face the comission on his own two feet (metaphorically) that he is not in charge. He is not a leader.
Here is your reference to Bush saying that God speaks through him: Intelligencer Journal and the Lancaster New Era, on July 16, 2004. . Here's the Lancaster Online archive. It requires Javascript.
I don't care about Bush's personal beliefs. I only care about the constituencies he panders to when he creates policies for our country.
Why would you vote for this failure again? He blew the war on terror before 9/11 and brought us into Iraq solely as the behest of his neo-con buddies in their quest for world domination, while claiming it was related to the war on terror. He hasn't come clean about his national guard record, nor his history of drug use. While Kerry was fighting in Vietnam, he was having Senior pull strings to get him out of his military obligation. Hasn't he demonstrated to you that he is unfit to lead our country?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
For your information, the U.S. has allready admitted to having large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear weapons, ready for use. The U.S. and Russia also keep reference samples of biological agents for use in counteracting biological weapons.
You may be interested to know that there are actually inspection/monitoring systems set up to monitor test ban treaties and such. So yes, the U.S. might be inspected, but I'm not sure it would be by the U.N. but rather by other states.
The U.N. Headquarters is situated in the larges city in the U.S. The open nature of the U.S. society, and the seismiological and radiological monitoring stations around the world help to reveal any test of a nuclear weapon on the planet. If I recall correctly, there is allready in place an agreement not to use nuclear weapons in space. New nuclear powers and any alien governments haven't signed that treaty.
Not specifically related to WMD, is the Open Skies Treaty, which allows other countries to do reconnaissance flights over the U.S.
(The moderators said this was Interesting, so you get a matter-of-fact reply.)
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Iceland has had a parliament since the 10th century.
Have a look at other histories besides American ones to see which countries have had democratic institutions for a period of time.
I disagree. I would be interested in hearing of a country that has been more stable over the period since the civil war.
OK. Let's define our terms here: more stable means no revolutions, civil wars, major unrest, or invasions since the end of the US civil war in 1865. How many can you name in 5 minutes? Go! Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, Mauritius, Seychelles, Malta, bzzt. Out of time.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Not all European countries, but many of them have laws that if you are "ethnically" of that country's background, you can claim citizenship, but if you are not, it is much more difficult. That was what the example of "ethnic Germans" coming back from the USSR was. Similarly, I can claim Greek citizenship if I wanted to move there, simply because I'm of Greek ancestry, but a "non-ethnically-Greek" immigrant can't. Basically the European version of Israel's "law of return".
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The Irish constitutional amendment only requires that the parents of children be legally resident in the country in order for the children to be citizens. Basically, they got fed up of 8 and 9-months pregnant women with no connection with Ireland arriving at their airports and then claiming residence rights throughout the EU as the parents of Irish citizens.
A U.S. organization is seeking volunteers to help monitor elections in cities where there is historic concern about voter disenfranchisement: http://www.electionprotection.org/. They're seeking volunteers, especially lawyers, law students and clergy, to become trained and help with the effort. I'm not connected with the organization, I just think it's a good idea.
Sorry here is a better source, which comes directly from the Reuters agency (see the copyright at the bottem) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0922-03.ht m
The other one was not really that good.
Umh yeah... women and people of lower classes. Hell, the vast majority of black men couldn't vote until at least the late 1960's (when enforcment of the 15th Amendment kicked in via applicaion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act). Women didn't get the right to vote nationally until the 19th Amendment in 1920. Every original state had a property requirement for voting. And even if you were wealthy enough to vote, the only directly elected federal office was the House of Representatives. There was no popular vote for the Presidency until 1824 (and even then it was not binding) or for the Senate until 1917.
I recommend you read some Howard Zinn.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin