European observers have revealed that the just concluded 2016 US Elections in which Donald Trump won was hugely flawed.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
A report from international election observers on their preliminary findings on U.S. elections starts off promisingly. “The 8 November general elections were highly competitive,” they said, “and demonstrated commitment to fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association.”
The observers also commended local election officials for their competence and professionalism.
But that's about where the positivity ends.
Hundreds of election monitors from around the world fanned out
across the United States on Tuesday to ensure free and fair elections,
as well as to document the process for the benefit of their home
nations. About 300 of them were brought to the United States by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE's
report damns the U.S. elections with faint praise, and then gets to the
meat of the issue: Too many voting machines are faulty, and huge
portions of the population can't vote anyhow.
In 13 percent of observations, OSCE representatives noted
malfunctions with electronic voting machines. That is roughly 1 in 8
votes. They said possible causes could be lack of pre-election testing
of the machines, which may have been outdated or ill-maintained to begin
with. In some cases, voters were noted to have complained that their
choices were not accurately recorded by functioning machines, which the
observers said could play into claims of election rigging in the
public's perception. Those instances may have been caused by “poorly calibrated equipment,” they said.
One in 10 voters also had to wait in line for more than 30 minutes
to cast their vote, especially at polling stations the observers said
were short on staff, particularly during pre-work, morning voting hours.
The OSCE observers were able to visit 932 polling stations in 33
states, but were denied access to 17 states, including Indiana,
Delaware, Maine, Missouri and New Jersey.
Long lines and faulty machines may be aggravating to voters, and
feed into suspicions about the integrity of the process, but the report
reserves far more serious language for the politically motivated
disenfranchisement of entire segments of voters.
“Recent legal changes and decisions on technical aspects of the
electoral process were often motivated by partisan interests, adding
undue obstacles for voters,” notes the report. “Suffrage rights are not guaranteed for all citizens, leaving sections of the population without the right to vote.”
Here is the summation of the issue, per the OSCE:
Some 4 million residents of U.S. overseas territories and 600,000
residents of the District of Columbia do not have voting representation
in Congress. In addition, residents of U.S. overseas territories do not
have the right to vote in presidential elections. More than 6 million
convicts, including those who have served their sentences as well as
many still facing trial, are widely disenfranchised, although several
states have recently taken steps to restore their voting rights. These
restrictions contravene the principle of universal and equal suffrage,
as provided in OSCE commitments.
The report then continues to expand the breadth of its criticism,
which started with the specific, then encompassed the legal, and ended
on the structural.
Campaign finance regulations came under particular scrutiny.
Generally, the United States has relatively few limits on financial
contributions to campaigns. That is especially so in the wake of the
2008 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission, which allowed corporations, just like individuals and
nonprofit groups, to contribute unlimited amounts to political
campaigns. Because many of those contributions are routed through
political action committees (PACs) rather than the campaigns themselves,
their origins aren't required to be disclosed to the FEC, severely
limiting transparency regarding where a candidate gets his or her
support.
The report also touched upon the underrepresentation of women both
in American politics at large, as well as in decision-making electoral
administration positions; the polarization of the media and a
proliferation of fake news articles on the Internet; and the institution
of the electoral college, a system that allows for a candidate to win
the popular vote and yet fail to become president.
Culled from Washington Post
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