State officials in Texas and Iowa have succeeded in putting the United States in the company of countries like Iran and North Korea this week after pledging to block access of international observers with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to polling places — even going as far as threatening to arrest the monitors. The actions are in direct violation with our long-standing position vis-a-vis other nations. It is a shameful position that, again, makes our country look like a hypocrites in demanding such monitoring in other countries but not allowing it in our own.
Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, sent a letter to the 57-member observer mission, warning that “the OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance.”
Thomas Rymer, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has said that the group always abides by local election laws. He correctly notes however that the denial of access to polling areas suggested by these officials, and the threats of arrest, contradict our own obligations under international law. Both Texas and Iowa officials have threatened to arrest monitors from the OSCE who come within a certain distance to the polling places. In Texas, it is 100 feet. In Iowa it is an extraordinary 300 feet.
Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz insisted that “Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.” In the 2008 election, international OSCE election observers were turned away from polling stations in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas as well has having problems in areas of Colorado, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Admittedly, these monitors act under generally defined provisions but these states are undermining our ability to take such a position in the future in other countries.
Yet, lawyer and Fox News Anchor Greta Van Susteren has defended the threats against international monitors: “The election is none of their business. We ought to be able to police our own election.” Of course, that is precisely the same argument used in Iran, China, and other countries. It is another example of what is often referred to as “American Exceptionalism” that we are simply unique and above the rules that we apply to other nations.
Even though state law may be clear, it is up to the State Department to make known to the states any clear obligations under international agreements. Notably, these monitors have been in the United States after being invited in by George W. Bush — a correct and admirable decision.
Source: Politico
LK,
You have as usual contributed valuable information without a partisan slant or agenda…… What were you before here, an honest journalist? Just like Elaine M., postings they are worth reading….. I had to reread your post because of the valuable information conveyed….. Thank you…
You make a false equivalence, Bruce.
There are people at the state and Federal level actively trying to ban abortion or make them prohibitively difficult to obtain. There have been specific attempts to criminalize abortion in Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi and North and South Dakota.
Literally no one is talking about taking your guns away except for fear mongering ignorant propaganda trolls. Sell you GOP partisan horseshit somewhere else. You peddle propaganda and you do it poorly. Straw men are one of the weakest tactics out there and there is no bigger straw man than “they’re coming to take yer’ guns, Bubba!”
But people are actually trying to ban abortions, Bruce. The Akins and the Kings and the Mourdocks and the Ryans and the Perrys. People pandering to the religious right and throwing the Constitution under the bus to do so.
In the end, it is as simple as you once again lie, Bruce. This time it’s by the weak application of the fallacy of false equivalence. But thanks for the reminder that logical fallacies are the favorite tool of propaganda trolls everywhere. It’d be cutely predictable if your lot weren’t such feckless scumbags.
Gene:
just like nobody’s going to ban abortion. It’s a scare tactic.
I just read the post above by lottakatz. Maybe we actually need some international monitors.
The phrase “American exceptionalism” came to my mind when I read this story in Huffpost a few days ago. Frankly, were I a county supervisor of elections, I would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to international monitors how democracy can work if we let it.
All of the outrage is merely jingoist blather by the same people who find nothing at all troublesome about routinely violating the territorial sovereignty of other nations through random drone strikes, a practice which in more rational times we would have described as an act of war.
Bruce,
I saved you the trouble. I simply looked ahead at your script. Also, don’t mistake me for an Obama supporter because I shot holes in you partisan trollery. I think he aided and abetted treason by no prosecuting Bush and Cheney.
The bottom line is no body is coming for your precious guns. It’s a moot point. It’s a threat that simply does not exist.
Genie:
Did I even mention Obama?
Even though many learned folks are calling the election for Obama already based on the Electoral College vote I am not at all confident that it’s sewed up. This election has shaped up to be much, much dirtier than 2000 and I know how that one worked out.
Monitors not being allowed are the least of the problems. Still, I’d like to see (if optics are everything) President Carter show up at a polling place as part of a monitoring team (he has been a monitor in various countries) and see what happens. That would be some serious optics.
A couple of bradblog dot com articles:
“Presidential Election Still Imperiled by Power Outages in 6+ States Where E-Voting is Forced”
By Brad Friedman on 11/1/2012 2:05pm PT
[This article was cross-published by Salon.]
With just 5 days to go until the nation holds its next Presidential Election, power remains out in large swaths of the Eastern Seaboard, according to Google Maps’ special Hurricane Sandy power outage map.
The outages persist in a number of states which force the majority of their voters to use 100% unverifiable electronic voting machines to cast their votes at the polls on Election Day. If power is out at the polling place on Election Day in those states, voters may not be able to cast their vote at all.
As we warned before Sandy barreled ashore earlier this week, the ability of voters to vote at all — presuming polling places are not flooded and voters are able to get to them — is imperiled by states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and even Ohio, all of which force all, or some of their voters to vote on systems which simply do not work if they do not have power.
While most of those states require a small percentage of emergency paper ballots be made available at the precincts, that number is unlikely to be enough in the event that voting machines are unavailable all day at the polls on November 6th. Moreover, battery backups on the electronic touch-screen systems are unreliable at best and, even when working, can only be counted on for a small number of hours. …
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9682
Some other interesting info:
“• Broward County, FL Early Votes Disappearing?
“Just one of the many reasons we advise against early voting, unless it’s absolutely necessary: “An analysis of the unofficial totals by early voting location on the Broward Supervisor of Elections website from Saturday, compared to the tallies posted on Sunday, shows that in one location, the E. Pat Larkins Community Center, located on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Pompano Beach, the revised totals showed 1,003 fewer votes. The initial tally reported from the polling place in the heavily black neighborhood showed 2,945 votes, but the revised tally was 1,401. Across the 17 Broward polling locations, 15 saw their vote totals revised, mostly by minute amounts of between 1 and 7 votes. But the three more significant changes, including the addition of 398 votes in Tamarac (a racially mixed community) and adding 99 votes to the totals from Pompano Beach City Hall, whose demographic is majority white.Political consultant David Brown, who is working for three Broward candidates, “said that when he inquired about the numbers, he was told by the elections office that the changes had resulted from a ‘computer glitch.”
This and other snapshots of early voting problems in the story:
“War on Democracy: Quick Shots – 11/2/2012
PA, TN, IA Photo ID Messes; Early/Absentee Votes Lost in FL?; GOP Poll Watcher Lies in WI; CO Skullduggery; Votes Flipping R to D Says GOP; Voter Suppression Billboard Funder Unmasked…”
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9685
Monitoring the VOTE RESULTS is what’s needed.
JT can you guys at your law school teach a seminar in Section 1983 law? Can you discuss it more often in this column as a remdedy?
The foreigners should go to the polls with a citizen of the state in which the polls are located. Have the citizen hold up a sign that says “I petition my government for redress of grievances of polling and voting fraud!” That will get one squarely in the First Amendment Door. Sue under Title 42 United States Code Section 1983 and sue each cop and each person acting in their official capacity to stiffle this right to inspect and petition the government for redress of grievances. Sue the municipality if they are involved. Seek atty fees under sectin 1988. Go gettem.
Idealist — if it’s me you’re asking “was it from Africa,” the answer is “no.” All that I say is true, but I know how to spin the truth into a good yarn, because in my previous career I was a newspaper reporter.
What I was talking about is nothing exotic like elephant tusks or blood diamonds. Just something that someone who does not trust the banking system might fancy. I am not a high roller. I work as a hospital nurse, and my wife used to be a computer programmer for a state university system before we decamped from the U.S. Plain people, but with no debt. We had the foresight to make some smart financial moves before we split. We like to have our assets in forms and places where they cannot be vapourized the way John Corzine and MF Global did with $1.2 billion of its clients supposedly “segregated” assets. Remember, if something you “own” is in electronic form, it can be made to disappear with a few keystrokes. Not that I keep EVERYTHING in a mattress. I’m paranoid, but not dysfunctionally so. I just need one of those foam pads to cover the lumps in the mattress, heh-heh. Figuratively speaking, of course!
Bruce 1, November 2, 2012 at 11:23 am
Gene:
One of the first things the facist did was disarm the population. Who in this country wants to do that?
========================================
The paint ballers vs. the DU tipped, armor piercing machine guns, drones, carpet bombs, sound weapons, lasers, and gas?
To name a few.
Let me know how that works out for you and your gang Bruce.
DOOD! there are better tactics and strategies than losing by hitting the enemy where they are strongest and you are weakest.
rcampbell,
I just have a couple of observations to make about banning something–anything–that people want to own.
18th Amendment
War on Drugs
How well has that worked out?
We could appoint you to be the gun confiscation czar. You can go back into the hills and coves of the Appalachians to tell the locals you have come to take their guns. You will need to have a will made out, but your family will not need to make funeral arrangements. Your body will never be found.
“Who in this country wants to do that?”
I do. The President doesn’t agree, but I would LOVE to see us ban everything to do with guns.
If the international lookers see the need to look at an election….. They have that right…… We gave it up by joining the UN….
I think I’ll just go over to getting you people to tell your stories. Far more informative than mine.
I’ve known that from the beginning, but who dares be first in a straight-laced group. It has been always me in a large group. Can’t stand the tension of the who’s-first wait.
Now I must ask, was it from Africa?
Idealist: The airport security here IS mellower than U.S. Heimat Seicherheit. I got pulled aside once in Vancouver when departing for Europe and asked whether I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash. Luckily for me on that trip, it was my wife who had the euros and Swiss francs. (We now carry large wads of banknotes and pay for everything with legal tender when we’re over there.) Otherwise, no “take off your shoes!” as in the U.S. Australia, where I have also lived, was similarly surveill-y, but polite. I refuse to fly inside the U.S. any more. Not because I have any reason to fear, but I’m an iconoclastic type, the sort of person who would move out of his country over political principles.
As far as NICE airport security, let me relate a little tale about what happened in Amsterdam last spring. We were on our way back home from Zurich and I was carrying some stuff that’s perfectly legal (no, NOT A’dam hash!) but, shall we say, it was a large amount and in a form that most people don’t usually tote. What it was, I will leave to your imagination, because this is the Internet, after all. It showed up on the scanner, and I showed the gate guards what it was. They had never seen anything like it, and called Customs. Caused a kerfuffle, Customs took its sweet time getting there to clear me, and we missed our plane. My wife was already on board, and they pulled her off, along with our luggage. But the Dutch police — they had plain-clothes detectives in addition to regular guards — were super-polite, and spoke fine English. Je parle Francais e piccolo Italiano, but no Dutch.
We fussed to our carrier, KLM, even though it was not our fault. KLM was nice enough to put us on a First Class, non-stop flight all the way to Vancouver. And we got to chill in the first-class lounge for an hour. When we went to get on the next jet, the same hoo-hah when they saw what I had. (Again, all legal, and I had carried twice that much on other trips.) They were apologetic, “just doing our job, sir.” But a gate guard guy recognized me from the first time, said in Dutch the equivalent of “he’s cool” and let me on. Very informal and human.
Airports can be secure without being thuggish. Just not in the USA! USA! USA!
Swarthmore,
you are correct that the Republican party is desperate. They will seize on any legal or illegal tactic to suppress the vote, not count the vote and to lie about issues and make up issues that don’t exist. Just think how upset the big money guys will be when their Millions are for naught!
Gene,
We have discussed the NRA and the Right’s claims that Obama is taking away your guns and they have no evidence of that claim. It is all about selling guns and making people afraid of the boogey man in the White House.
I plan to go out to vote in South Carolina on Tuesday, even though I have little to no confidence that my vote will actually be recorded as I cast it. I think we could some election monitoring way before election day.