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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
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 :)
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.
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?
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
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
Switzerland managed to be incredibly stable in war torn Europe retaining its current form since 1848.