{"id":40187,"date":"2018-11-06T08:13:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T13:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40187"},"modified":"2018-11-06T08:13:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T13:13:46","slug":"u-s-elections-are-neither-free-nor-fair-states-need-to-open-their-doors-to-more-observers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40187","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Elections Are Neither Free Nor Fair. States Need to Open Their Doors to More Observers."},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Elections Are Neither Free Nor Fair. States Need to Open Their Doors to More Observers.<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitor a polling place in Washington, D.C., during the presidential election on Nov. 8, 2016.<\/p>\n

Photo: Yuri Gripas\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

VOTER SUPPRESSION. DISENFRANCHISEMENT.<\/u> Gerrymandering. Can Tuesday\u2019s midterms in the United States really be considered free and fair elections?<\/p>\n

Perhaps we should consult with the experts. Few Americans have heard of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe<\/a>, or OSCE; even fewer are aware that OSCE observers have been keeping tabs on U.S. elections<\/a> since 2002, at the invitation<\/a> of the U.S. State Department.<\/p>\n

On October 26, the OSCE\u2019s Office\u00a0for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Washington, D.C., issued an interim report<\/a> on the 2018 midterms. It didn\u2019t make for pleasant reading. \u201cThe right to vote is subject to many limitations,\u201d warned the report, \u201cwith racial minorities disproportionately impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time the OSCE has sounded the alarm. In the wake of the 2016 presidential race, OSCE observers<\/a> praised the U.S. for holding a \u201chighly competitive\u201d election while also criticizing a campaign \u201ccharacterized by harsh personal attacks, as well as intolerant rhetoric\u201d and changes to election rules that \u201cwere often motivated by partisan interests, adding undue obstacles for voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuffrage rights,\u201d the 2016 observers concluded, were \u201cnot guaranteed for all citizens, leaving sections of the population without the right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is that what a free and fair election is supposed to look like? It should be a source of shame that the United States, once held up as a model to emerging democracies around the globe, now needs outside observers to remind it of its most basic democratic obligations.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Elections Are Neither Free Nor Fair. States Need to Open Their Doors to More Observers. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitor a polling place in Washington, D.C., during the presidential election on Nov. 8, 2016. Photo: Yuri Gripas\/AFP\/Getty Images VOTER SUPPRESSION. DISENFRANCHISEMENT. Gerrymandering. Can Tuesday\u2019s midterms in the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[204,253,17012,5567,827,12162,22620,865],"class_list":["post-40187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-elections","tag-mehdi-hasan","tag-the-intercept","tag-united-states","tag-us-elections","tag-us-mid-term-elections","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40188,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40187\/revisions\/40188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}