“The threat of criminal sanctions against observers is unacceptable. The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”–Janez Lenarcic, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Officials and organizations in the U.S. have always pushed for international election observers (which include election observers such as former President Jimmy Carter, and First Lady Rosalynn Carter) in countries they deem as undemocratic. Now, several U.S. states are banning observers from witnessing their election process!
The United States is a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). As such, each member must allow international observers to witness each national election. In fact, the U.S. has allowed such observations since 2002 (beginning under the Bush Jr administration). OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) officials say this is the first time they have encountered opposition from state level officials!
On 31 October 2012, the state of Iowa announced they will arrest any OSCE ODIHR observer found in polling places. Iowa Secretary of State, Matt Schultz, a Republican, claims Iowa law prevents observation of the election process from closer than 300 feet of the polling place (how convenient, it makes election monitoring ineffective).
Recently Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, a Republican, made the same threat of arrest against observers.
This comes after Officials with the OSCE received letters from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, claiming they had evidence of massive election fraud.
As an example: Some reports say an estimated 700,000 U.S. voters will not be allowed to vote because of new voter identification laws.
In the past, U.S. officials have always claimed that any country that has a problem with their elections being monitored must be undemocratic. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot and it’s U.S. officials that are fighting the monitoring of U.S. elections. So what does that tell you?