OAS Mission Report on US Election
Guess what they found?
Via the WSJ: No Evidence of Systematic Fraud in U.S. Elections, International Observer Mission Reports.
A team of international observers invited by the Trump administration has issued a preliminary report giving high marks to the conduct of last week’s elections–and it criticizes President Trump for making baseless allegations that the outcome resulted from systematic fraud.
A 28-member delegation from the Organization of American States followed events in several locations across the U.S., including in the battleground states of Georgia and Michigan, both remotely and with observers at polling stations and counting centers.
[…]
The report noted: ‘”In his statement the Republican candidate cast further aspersions on the US electoral process, stating that ‘This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election. They’re trying to rig an election and we can’t let that happen.’ The OAS observers deployed in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia did not witness any of the aforementioned irregularities.”’
Also:
The Mission notes that attempts by members of the public to ‘stop the count,’ in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, “were clear examples of intimidation of electoral officials.”
To date, the closest thing that I have seen to any evidence of electoral irregularities is Corey Lewandowski’s claim that one (yes, one) dead person’s mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania may have been sent after her death (an uncorroborated allegation to my knowledge, but it at least sounded more plausible than anything else I have heard, seen, or read to date).
That outside observers were sent to monitor our election disturbs me.
What have we become? This whole shebang is so embarrassing.
We gutted the VRA. One party is hell bent on making voting as difficult as possible.
I will not and can never forgive what Rs did in Wisconsin did this spring. That was unconscionable and deliberately cruel.
@de stijl: T
It’s actually been commonplace for some time. A WaPo report points out: “For the ninth time, observers affiliated with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have come to the United States to watch over an election and recommend improvements, a mission little-noticed by most Americans.”
Looking at the OSCE site, it appears that they’ve been doing so since 2002 pursuant to an international agreement: “In line with the 1990 Copenhagen Document commitments, the United States invited ODIHR to observe the 5 November 2002 general elections. In response, ODIHR deployed an Election Assessment Mission for these elections.”
@James Joyner: Indeed. There is usually little reason to notice.
And, really, the goal from the US government has been to demonstrate how well we operate, not because of a need for outside validation.
And if you read the preliminary report, it is pretty glowing, despite all the challenges of this year.
@de stijl:
C’mon now. The U.S. has always been two-faced on human rights and ballot access integrity. The collective “we” was just stupid enough to elect an inept dunderhead who allowed the true power grabbers into the sunlight. I don’t know if Doc Taylor ever covered it here but, as we’ve learned, democracy by itself is fragile.
@de stijl: respecfully, That is because you don’t know that our elections are regularly observed by international groups as are ALL democratic contries. The message here is that ONCE AGAIN no irregularities were found
I’m betting that, because Trump was talking about rigged elections beforehand, the process was probably even more rigorous than usual, and less of the commonplace errors are being found. He’s a terrible poker player.