They're not going to be impressed
Russian observers to monitor U. S. votePeter Goodspeed, National Post
Published: Thursday, October 23, 2008
Stung by international criticism of its presidential and congressional elections, Russia is striking back by sending a team of observers to monitor the U. S. presidential poll on Nov. 4.
Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman with Russia's Foreign Ministry, says Moscow will have eight election observers attached to a monitoring mission conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The OSCE, which has infuriated the Kremlin in the past by criticizing elections in Russia and other post-communist states, is sending 62 election observers to the United States.
The mission, headed by Audrey Glover, the top British diplomat, includes a core of 13 international experts from the OSCE's office in Washington and 48 international observers who will be deployed in teams of two around the country.
In addition to visiting polling stations on Nov. 4, they will study the election campaign, media coverage and issues of voter registration, identification and voters rights.
The quality of US elections sucks. Registration fraud is rampant, we don't clean up the voting rolls worth a damn, it's way to easy to vote "absentee" / early vote (no ID required to vote early. Go down to the County Elections office, say you're [name of registered voter], and you can vote), and election day security sucks.
(Years ago my mom ran for city council. She got a data file from the county with every registered voter, name address, and what elections they'd voted in. I wrote some code to read the file, and print out sheets, by street, listing all the people who'd voted two or more times in the last 5 elections. One of the names was a girl I'd had a crush on in granner school. So I walked her street, and asked for her vote for my mom. I also got to chat with her, and her husband. Silly me, I hadn't noticed she was on our list twice, once uner her maiden name, once under her married name.
The only thing that stopped her from voting twice (once on election day, once absentee, or else twice absentee) was her own honesty. That's an insane way to run elections.)
So, expect these observers to mock our system. Expect that their mockery will be correct.
Published: Thursday, October 23, 2008
Stung by international criticism of its presidential and congressional elections, Russia is striking back by sending a team of observers to monitor the U. S. presidential poll on Nov. 4.
Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman with Russia's Foreign Ministry, says Moscow will have eight election observers attached to a monitoring mission conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The OSCE, which has infuriated the Kremlin in the past by criticizing elections in Russia and other post-communist states, is sending 62 election observers to the United States.
The mission, headed by Audrey Glover, the top British diplomat, includes a core of 13 international experts from the OSCE's office in Washington and 48 international observers who will be deployed in teams of two around the country.
In addition to visiting polling stations on Nov. 4, they will study the election campaign, media coverage and issues of voter registration, identification and voters rights.
The quality of US elections sucks. Registration fraud is rampant, we don't clean up the voting rolls worth a damn, it's way to easy to vote "absentee" / early vote (no ID required to vote early. Go down to the County Elections office, say you're [name of registered voter], and you can vote), and election day security sucks.
(Years ago my mom ran for city council. She got a data file from the county with every registered voter, name address, and what elections they'd voted in. I wrote some code to read the file, and print out sheets, by street, listing all the people who'd voted two or more times in the last 5 elections. One of the names was a girl I'd had a crush on in granner school. So I walked her street, and asked for her vote for my mom. I also got to chat with her, and her husband. Silly me, I hadn't noticed she was on our list twice, once uner her maiden name, once under her married name.
The only thing that stopped her from voting twice (once on election day, once absentee, or else twice absentee) was her own honesty. That's an insane way to run elections.)
So, expect these observers to mock our system. Expect that their mockery will be correct.