Monitors See Problems Over Vote Rules, Machines

[maddezmom]

By Saul Hudson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - International election observers predicted problems with new rules and technology for Tuesday's U.S. presidential election that were designed to avoid a repeat of Florida's counting fiasco four years ago.

Almost 90 observers from Europe's top rights watchdog -- conducting the group's first full-blown monitoring of a U.S. vote -- fanned out across the country on Monday on the lookout for snags with electronic voting machines and provisional ballots, said spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir.


Opinion polls say Tuesday's vote is too close to call between President Bush (news - web sites) and Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites).


Ironically, the main worries of observers for the Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe relate to innovations that electoral authorities introduced hoping to avoid the problems from 2000.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=1&u=/nm/20041101/pl_nm/election_observers_dc


and

US wants Ukraine to shape up vote

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said that the first round of Ukraine's presidential vote was a step backwards and called on the country to hold a second round without irregularities.


State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States agreed with an Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe (OSCE (news - web sites)) assessment of Sunday's vote.


"We note that the OSCE observer mission has said the presidential campaign and October 31st election did not meet a considerable number of international standards for democratic elections.


"We are disappointed in this and we share the OSCE's assessment that this election, quote, 'constitutes a step backward,' unquote, from Ukraine's 2002 elections," he said.


more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1520&ncid=1520&e=10&u=/afp/20041101/pl_afp/us_ukraine_vote_041101211904


Wonder if the State Dept will issue the same demands against it's own country if the monitor's deem voter problems??? :eyes:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. "US Wants Ukraine To Shape Up Vote"? WTF?

Kettle, Pot is calling on Line One...

[msgadget]

2. I was already wondering

after the first article if anyone saw the irony and then the SECOND proved that ya did. :crazy:

The US expects other nations to accept their accessments but gets its back up when the same sort of assistance is offered.

[maddezmom]

3. * misadministration: "Do as I say, not as I do"