International team to monitor presidential election
Posted by Moonage on 09 Aug 2004 | Tagged as: Government
CNN.com - International team to monitor presidential election - Aug 8, 2004
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A team of international observers will monitor the presidential election in November, according to the U.S. State Department
I’m all for this for several reasons:
1. The Democrats made a lot of outlandish accusations during the last election ( 2000 ), including Jesse Jackson making accusations of racial discrimination, trying to block military absentee voting, etc.. All in an effort to maximize their vote to win Florida. Having a disinterested third party should discourage this behavior this time around. Or, it may prove that the accusations were true and allow the issue to be addressed.
2. We expect other countries to be monitored, we should lead by example. Our voting system is pretty safe, well-organized ( for the most part ), and allows all parties fielding candidates to monitor the other parties during the actual election. I feel there is no better voting system on the planet. In order to assure and educate the world on how to do it (for the most part) right, we need to allow the world to watch how it works in action. Telling countries democracy is superior is not nearly as affective as allowing them to witness HOW democracy mechanically works.
3. Along the lines of #2, we are the pimary enforcers of the organizations that try to assure fair elections in other countries. To take that stand and not allow monitoring of our own elections would be hypocritical.
At the time of this writing, the country is once again split down the middle on whether it supports the monitoring or not:
http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/12586.content.html
I wish someone here would leave a comment as to why they would oppose it.
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