International Election Inspection

International election monitors recently travelled to Afghanistan to observe the country's first post-Taliban election, which was fraught with corruption and irregularities. Their counterparts are now in the land of the "liberator," to see if similar issues arise in states like Florida and Ohio.

On November 2, one hundred specialists from the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and twenty experts invited by the San Francisco-based non-profit Global Exchange will observe and monitor elections in crucial swing states across the country.

The idea of international monitors made headlines last July when thirteen Congressional Democrats, concerned about a repeat of the fiasco in Florida, sent a letter to Kofi Annan asking the UN to send representatives. "We believe that the engagement of international election monitors can be a catalyst to expedite the necessary reform, as well as reduce the likelihood of questionable practices and voter disenfranchisement on Election Day," the letter stated. House Republicans shot back with concerns about the infringement of US sovereignty and passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill banning US tax dollars from supporting any UN mission to monitor votes. In a compromise, the State Department decided to invite the less-controversial multinational OSCE to see if US elections measure up to international standards.

In that respect, the US may already be in trouble before Tuesday's election. "I don't think any country could choose a system as complicated as yours," says Horacio Boneo, an election specialist from Argentina sent to Ohio by Global Exchange's Fair Election project. He's monitored elections in over 60 countries, including Cambodia, Tajikistan, Malawi and Mexico. (Global Exchange picked states based on innovative electoral reforms, voting irregularities in 2000 and electoral significance, choosing Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio. The OSCE declined to offer monitors for interviews.)

"It's not a place I'd normally visit," Boneo says of the Buckeye state. He spent two weeks traveling around Akron, Cleveland and Columbus in mid-September, before returning on Friday to Columbus for "phase two" of the operation, where he'll hopefully monitor voting tabulation on Election Day. After spending weeks meeting with civil society groups, academics, election lawyers and representatives from the Ohio Secretary of State, Boneo's still flustered by the US electoral system. "Most people couldn't dream of the electoral college in other countries," he says. "I think, if I had to, I'd certainly stay with my system."

His colleague Irene Baghoomians, a human rights lawyers from Sydney, Australia, will spend "phase two" in Cleveland. She's considerably more fluent in the intricacies of US electoral politics, having spent three years in New York working for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "I'm here because the whole idea of democracy becomes meaningless when you don't have free and fair elections," Baghoomians says. She frets about provisional ballots, which won't be counted until ten days after the election in Ohio, and fears that poll workers may not give the right instructions to voters who show up in the wrong precinct. "There's a lot of disquiet on this issue," she says.

Global Exchange also dispatched CD Jones, a former election officer from Wales, to observe conditions in Miami, Jacksonville and Ft. Lauderdale. Jones spent thirty years running local elections in Wrexham, Wales and monitored the first elections in Cambodia and Mozambique. Regarding Florida's election process, Jones voices concerns about partisan election administration ("It doesn't seem transparent when the people running the elections are also up for re-election"), electronic voting machines ("How do you conduct a recount with no paper trail?"), absentee ballots ("There's no set procedure for checking them"), and disenfranchisement of ex-felons ("You're talking about 600,000 people left off the rolls). "I ask all these questions," Jones admits, "And then I realize Jeb Bush is governor," he chuckles.

The Global Exchange mission hit a roadblock just recently when election supervisors in Ohio's Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Franklin (Columbus) County and Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) County--crucial districts marked by irregularities in 2000 and growing concerns in 2004--said that they will prevent international monitors from observing polling sites there. Most states, including Ohio and Florida, have laws prohibiting independent, non- partisan observers. The State Department-invited OSCE, however, hasn't experienced similar barriers at their sites.

Whatever the outcome, the presence of international vote monitors in the US on a larger scale than ever before will hopefully draw needed attention to the defects in the mechanics of American democracy. Come tomorrow, it may not be a pretty picture. As Horacio Boneo says, "There's some spots on the shining city on the hill."

Ari Berman

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