Author: Andrew Gumbel
Publication: The Independent, UK
Date: October 31, 2002
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
Al-bania - 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 Organisation
for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the 10man 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.
