The call has come from the land of the free, the United States, for election observers for the US electoral process this autumn.
The US-based human rights group Global Exchange plans to host at least 28 independent, international monitors as part of its Fair Elections initiative. The monitors will apply internationally developed standards of electoral fairness to investigate and report on issues of concern to the US electorate.
Jason Mark, communications director for the organisation, told the Mail & Guardian Online this week that the project is the first of its kind in the US undertaken by civil society.
Mark said a dozen members of the US Congress have appealed to the United Nations for election monitoring, but he expected the request to be turned down because the UN only accepts invitations from national governments, not parliamentarians.
“So far, we have gotten a fantastic response among many Americans who think this type of international monitoring is long overdue. So millions of people will welcome the monitors with open arms,” said Mark.
“That said, there is a deep strain of nativism, even xenophobia, that runs through American culture. So we are sure that millions of others will respond with the attitude: ‘Who are these foreigners to come here to tell us what to do?'”
According to the Fair Elections website, the disputed 2000 presidential election gave new urgency to questions about how Americans vote, who participates and how campaigns are financed.
Mark said that in the disputed election, 105-million citizens voted, or 51,3 % of all eligible voters. In the 1996 presidential election, 95,8-million citizens made their way to the polls to vote — less than 50% of eligible voters. This was eight million fewer voters than in 1992, and it marked the first time in more than 70 years that less than half of the eligible voters participated in a presidential election.
“African-Americans in particular are increasingly sceptical of our electoral process. Each time I tell African-Americans about this project, they tell me, at length, how they feel that black people’s votes don’t matter and that the system is set up to discourage blacks and poor people from voting.
“It doesn’t take long for you to sit on a bar stool or chat with a cab driver to hear complaints about how the ‘regular people’ have no influence in the decisions that get made.”
Mark said his organisation is “cautiously optimistic” that the project could contribute to real change.
“We know that every initiative is a part of a bigger goal, and we trust that this project, by igniting new discussion about the state of American democracy, can help lead to some important reforms,” he said.
“Fair Elections does not believe that our international friends can solve our problems. But we trust that their inquiries can help create a more transparent political process, and that, in turn, will bolster public faith in our system,” according to the website.
“The odd thing about US elections is that there is no single national standard for voting. Literally every single county makes up its own rules, and there are thousands of counties. This, I should note, is among the challenges the monitors will focus on. Some states will use new voting machines, others will not,” said Mark.
In the 2000 poll, Florida’s ageing punch-card voting system caused so much confusion that a month of recounts proved inconclusive before George Bush was eventually declared President by the Supreme Court. Most of the arguments were concerned with whether a hole not fully punched through — the hanging chad — counted as a legitimate vote.
According to the website, the monitors are free to investigate anything they deem relevant. At the same time, Fair Elections will draw the monitors’ attention to three controversies that are undermining US citizens’ confidence that their votes count:
- Allegations of inequitable disenfranchisement of minority and poor voters in some states and counties;
- Disagreements over the security of increasingly widespread touch-screen computer voting machines; and
- Concerns about the consequences of corporate and personal wealth in political contests.
While in the US, the observers are scheduled to visit Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio and Washington, DC.