MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT



It may be less than 150 monitors and observers, but a UN affiliated organization (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)) will be in the US on Election Day to report on any perceived irregularities. According to The Hill, the delegation is coming at the request of US Civil Rights groups concerned about the massive national effort by the Republican Party to keep non-GOP voting groups from casting ballots:

Civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

BuzzFlash at Truthout, along with other Internet sites, has repeatedly pointed out that voter fraud at the polls is statistically almost non-existent in the United States. However, the Republicans, through such surrogates as the Tea Party leaning "True the Vote" and laws inhibiting the most basic right of democracy – voting – have created an illusionary perception of hordes of illegal voters. (Jane Mayer has written a timely New Yorker article on "The Voter Fraud Myth." )

Voter suppression potentially reaching into the millions for partisan political purposes, based on the disseminating of knowingly false information about the scarcity of voting fraud, is a crime against the Constitution.

The Hill quotes Giovanna Maiola, spokeswoman for OSCE, as indicating that the international mission – given its extremely limited size – will try to focus "on a number of areas on the state level, including the legal system, election administration, the campaign, the campaign financing [and] new voting technologies used in the different states.”

It is appropriate that the United Nations monitor US elections, despite its small contingent. After all, the Republican Party is conducting a war on democracy. What we are seeing is an effort to create a de facto apartheid system of casting ballots for our government.

(By Vaguely Artistic)

