International
Election
Observers On
July 1, 2004 Rep.
Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30) and a group of other Representatives,
including Corrine Brown, Julia Carson, Joseph Crowley, Elijah Cummings,
Danny Davis, Raul Grijalva, Michael Honda, Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold
Nadler, sent a letter to United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
requesting
that the U.N send election observers to monitor the November 2, 2004
presidential
election. On July 8, Johnson wrote Secretary of State Colin
Powell
and asked that he request UN election observers. On July 15, 2004
the House debated a Republican amendment to "prohibit funds from being
used to request the United Nations to monitor the election;" the idea
of
UN observers did not advance. OSCE/ODIHR
Election Observation Mission
However, in response to Johnson's July
8 letter, a State Department official wrote back indicating that the
Department
has invited the Organization for
Security
and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Office for Democratic
Institutions
and Human Rights to send an election observation mission. On
September 8, 2004 OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister
Solomon Passy appointed OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Vice-President
Barbara Haering of Switzerland as the special coordinator to lead the
mission. (>) Rita
Süssmuth of Germany heads the Election Observation Mission, which
set up in Washington, DC on October 11 with 10 staff. Plans
called
for 75 observers to arrive on October 28 and deploy around the country
in teams of two. The OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission
issued a preliminary statement [PDF]
on November 4 noting that "Election Day proceeded in an orderly and
peaceful manner," but citing a range of concerns on such matters as
voting rights of felons, provisional ballots, and long lines.
Nov. 4, 2004--Rita
Süssmuth and Barbara Haering discuss the preliminary findings of
the OSCE/ ODIHR Election Observation Mission.
Global Exchange's
Fair Election team
In addition to the OSCE group, the San Francisco-based Global Exchange,
"an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting
environmental, political and social justice," has organized an
independent election observer team. A pre-election team of twenty
members, representing countries from Argentina to Zambia, arrived in
mid-September 2004 for an initial survey and visited Arizona, Georgia,
Florida, Missouri, and Ohio. The Fair Election team will pay
particular attention to three points: "evidence that minority and poor
voters are disproportionately disenfranchised;deep disagreements over
the security of millions of votes recorded on computer voting machines;
and concerns about the consequences of corporate and personal wealth in
political contests." Fair Election issued a 46-page
pre-election observation report "Election Readiness: It is Never
too Late for Transparency" [html, PDF] in
October 2004.
