International Intrusion Into The U.S. Presidential Election

The presidential election has the Left in panic mode. In addition to preparing brigades of lawyers to challenge every alleged irregularity and try to reverse the voters’ verdict in court if need be, the Obama administration and its leftwing boosters are looking to an international cavalry of "election observers” to save them.

The Hill has reported that "United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S.” on Election Day. There will be at least forty-four foreign observers sent by The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is a regional inter-governmental organization that engages in democratization and human rights projects in partnership with the United Nations. Their job will be to "assess these elections for compliance with international obligations and standards for democratic elections” according to the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

The OSCE, headquartered in Vienna, is comprised of 56 participating member states encompassing not only Europe (the one continent included in its title), but also the continents of North America and Asia.

While the United States is one of the members of the OSCE, just as it is a member of the United Nations, neither the OSCE nor the United Nations has any jurisdiction to intrude into our elections. Yet that does not stop either international organization from doing so. For example, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, already injected himself into the U.S. election by his self-righteous declaration, quoted in an article by The Canadian Press, that a Romney victory would constitute "a democratic mandate for torture.” When I asked the spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon whether the Secretary General would be concerned that an official with a UN title was commenting on the U.S. election, he noted that” special rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council and have an independent mandate under that body. They are not appointed by the Secretary-General.”

While this high level UN official has chosen to gratuitously attack one of our presidential candidates, the OSCE is getting ready to monitor our democratic election process. They will be sending representatives not only from democracies such as France and Germany, but also from countries with dubious records on human rights and democratic freedoms such as Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. (continue reading...)