:-)
Anthony (Landrieu vs. the Three Dwarfs....what great choices we have here!!!)
--
On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:15:52
JBrown72073 wrote:
>(I was hoping for a few African delegations, too.)
>
>Published on Thursday, October 31, 2002 by the lndependent/UK
>
>Albanian and Russian Observers Sent to Monitor American Elections
>by Andrew Gumbel
>
>The joke, during the endless presidential election recounts in Florida two
>years ago, was that Russia and Albania would send poll monitors to help the
>United States with its unexpected bump on the road to democracy. Now, the
>joke has become reality.
>
>A high-level delegation of European and North American election observers –
>including members from Russia and Albania – arrived yesterday for a
>week-long mission to watch Florida's mid-term elections, which take place on
>Tuesday.
>
>Their task: to see if the world's most powerful democracy has learned
>anything from the disastrous 36-day showdown between George Bush and Al Gore
>in 2000, in which the world saw every wart in Florida's deeply flawed
>electoral system without ever discovering for sure who had won.
>
>Certainly, the Russians and Albanians know a thing or two about flawed,
>rigged or fraudulent elections. After receiving a decade of lectures from
>Western democracies about overhauling their own systems, they also have a
>good idea how to overcome them. It remains to be seen whether Florida isn't
>too tough a nut to crack, even for them. "Whatever else it is, it will be an
>experience," said a tight-lipped Ilirjan Celibashi, head of Albania's Central
>Electoral Committee.
>
>Mandated by the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
>Europe, the 10-man delegation will not be manning polling stations. However,
>that might not have been a bad idea, given the experience of the
>presidential election and the more recent Democratic primary, when voting
>machines again malfunctioned and hundreds of people complained of being
>disenfranchised.
>
>Rather, the team will look at the broader picture of Florida's electoral
>laws, how they are applied, and the ways in which US practices fall short of
>the stringent requirements imposed on emerging democracies in Eastern Europe
>and elsewhere.
>
>This is the first time international monitors have gone to the United
>States. The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has
>been campaigning for some time to improve electoral standards in some of the
>older, established democracies.
>
>© 2002 lndependent Digital (UK) Ltd
>
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