Oz and the Orchestra
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International observers say US elections 'tarnished' by Trump and uncertainty
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe highlights systemic flaws and president’s bid to ‘undermine public trust’
Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 4 Nov 2020 23.22 GMT
An international observer mission has reported that the US elections have been “tarnished” by legal uncertainty and Donald Trump’s “unprecedented attempts to undermine public trust”.
A preliminary report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pointed to systemic weaknesses in US elections, as well as the stress imposed by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump’s calls for an end to vote counting in certain states based on false claims of fraud.
“Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions,” the report, by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the organisation’s parliamentary assembly, said.
“With Covid and so many things changing at the last minute practically for the voter and for the election administration, there was this feeling of unease or confusion,” the head of the ODIHR mission, the Polish diplomat Urszula Gacek, told the Guardian. “And then on top of that, you have an incumbent who is doing something we’ve never seen before, casting doubt on the actual process, and making the way you cast your ballot also a political statement.”
The OSCE report pointed to efforts at the state level to adjust voting procedures in light of the pandemic, and then the raft of legal challenges to those adjustments (overwhelmingly from Republicans), as being a source of considerable confusion when it came time to vote
www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2020 › nov › intern...
When attempting to evaluate whether elections in any foreign country are free and fair, we always look to the findings of the International Observers.
In the case of the US 2020, IO's have found that despite the difficulty in holding an election in the middle of a pandemic the only unfairness perpetrated on the US electorate came from Trump.
OZ
.
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe highlights systemic flaws and president’s bid to ‘undermine public trust’
Demonstrators call for the counting of every ballot in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Photograph: Tracie van Auken/EPA
Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 4 Nov 2020 23.22 GMT
An international observer mission has reported that the US elections have been “tarnished” by legal uncertainty and Donald Trump’s “unprecedented attempts to undermine public trust”.
A preliminary report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pointed to systemic weaknesses in US elections, as well as the stress imposed by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump’s calls for an end to vote counting in certain states based on false claims of fraud.
“Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions,” the report, by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the organisation’s parliamentary assembly, said.
“With Covid and so many things changing at the last minute practically for the voter and for the election administration, there was this feeling of unease or confusion,” the head of the ODIHR mission, the Polish diplomat Urszula Gacek, told the Guardian. “And then on top of that, you have an incumbent who is doing something we’ve never seen before, casting doubt on the actual process, and making the way you cast your ballot also a political statement.”
The OSCE report pointed to efforts at the state level to adjust voting procedures in light of the pandemic, and then the raft of legal challenges to those adjustments (overwhelmingly from Republicans), as being a source of considerable confusion when it came time to vote
www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2020 › nov › intern...
When attempting to evaluate whether elections in any foreign country are free and fair, we always look to the findings of the International Observers.
In the case of the US 2020, IO's have found that despite the difficulty in holding an election in the middle of a pandemic the only unfairness perpetrated on the US electorate came from Trump.
OZ
.