UN to moniter US elections; an insult?

Tonight is the final O and M debate and the concerned public is waiting nervously to see which candidate will come up trumps. Most probably, neither will and the outcome will be a stalemate with both sides claiming victory. The race is close according to the polls, but then again, there is bias in the polls as well as their interpreters. All in all, its a bit of a mess.

 

One relief is that not much has been made of the race and religion issues. There have been threats of violence, however, against enemies of both candidates should they win. The contest is decidedly passionate and highly ideological.

 

One bazaar phenomenon is the commissioning of polling station monitors from Europe and Central Asia. Amid reports of fiddling at these stations, minority and liberal institutions have requested the presence of monitors from the UN affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), specializing in this type of monitoring.

 

Fears have been expressed that conservative groups are intent on keeping minority voters away from the polls prompting the administration to allow the monitors access to certain as yet unnamed polling areas.

 

Americans perceive their country as the flagship of democracy and the chief exporter of related principles to peoples throughout the world. We do not take kindly to being monitored for the application of these principles in our own country. The monitors could well be a source of aggravation both before and on voting day.

 

The whole concept of inviting monitors smacks of politically motivated efforts to motivate and incite minorities to come out and vote. Everyone knows that voting fraud of any magnitude is not committed under the eyes of polling station observers. I find it difficult to imagine what some visitor from Central Asia will be able to detect that could not be otherwise, and better, detected by our own people.

 

There is a large insult factor involved in this matter with all Americans feeling somewhat if not seriously annoyed by it.

 

My take on the Ryan-Biden debate was that Joe Biden was better at lying than Ryan was at telling the truth. Yes, Joe was extremely rude and was allowed to practice his impoliteness by a biased moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News.

 

Indeed, Martha at times tried to impose herself into the debate. This was also true of Candy Crowley, the CNN moderator of the second presidential debate. She even went so far as to confirm a statement by Obama that she subsequently had to retract as it was incorrect.

 

There were moments when I wondered just who was running for office.

 

Copyright: MJCHAPUT  2012.