Activists Marshall Against Foreign Election Monitors

Calls on White House to Oppose OSCE Observers

Washington, DC –The American Policy Center, an activist think tank, is marshalling a demand that the State Department and the White House immediately withdraw their invitation to a European organization to monitor US elections in November.

"Despite the efforts of thirteen Democrat members of Congress and the U.S. State Department to invite the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the November 2^nd elections, both the White House and State Department have been silent about the threat this poses to the sovereignty of the nation and its electoral process," said Tom DeWeese, president of the Center. "We call on both the White House and the State Department to formally withdraw this invitation."

Neither the White House, nor the State Department has commented to date. The Center's supporters have undertaken thousands of phone calls and emails to secure a response. The Center, headquartered in Warrenton, VA, has long been opposed to foreign intervention in American policies and actions.

News that the U.S. State Department had invited an international team of observers to watch Americans vote in November and to monitor the U.S. presidential election followed news that a group of 13 Democrats, led by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, had written to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, asking him to send monitors to the U.S. for the upcoming election. "Americans should be outraged by this," said DeWeese, who called it "despicable."

"Think about how despicable this is," said DeWeese. "Thirteen members of the United States Congress are begging unaccountable, international meddlers to come and monitor our electoral process in an effort to frame America as some tin-pot Third World nation that can't fairly manage its own elections.

"Now, the Bush Administration, through Secretary of State Colin Powell, after being pressured by Eddie Bernice Johnson and her globalist gulag, has invited members of the OSCE to observe the upcoming presidential election," said DeWeese. "This raises a tremendous potential for corruption, political shenanigans, and electoral catastrophe."

When asked about their objectives, OSCE spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said: "We monitor, we publicize what we see. You can call it political pressure."

"This makes it very clear what would happen if a disputed ballot count were to occur, similar to the situation in Florida in 2000," said DeWeese. "Imagine having a group like OSCE step into the fray and add fuel to the fire. Whose side would they be on? The leftist Democrats in Congress who support them, of course."

The American Policy Center has contacted the State Department and is waiting for answers. "Unfortunately, the State Department has no answers," said DeWeese. "We were told to call the OSCE, because apparently, the OSCE can do whatever they want in this situation."

Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and ten of his congressional colleagues have sent a letter to Colin Powell demanding that he immediately explain this abhorrent situation.

Sovereignty champion Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) warned that, "We should be wary about organizations like the OSCE that seek to involve themselves in our electoral process. The OSCE in particular has a terrible record in the newly-democratic countries of central Europe, where it normally operates. According to groups that follow the conduct of the OSCE, this organization does much more to undermine free elections than to promote them.

"In Bosnia in 1996, for example," said Rep. Paul, "the OSCE gave its seal of approval to parliamentary elections despite the fact that an impossible 107 percent of the possible voting-age population had voted. In 1998, the OSCE observer team that was to monitor the cease-fire between the Serbs and Albanians was caught sending targeting information back to the US and European Union in advance of the US-led attack on Serbia. This year, the OSCE approved the election of Mikheil Saakashvili in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with a Saddam Hussein-like 97 percent of the vote! There are dozens more similar examples."

 

DeWeese notes that membership in the United Nations or the OSCE opens the doors to their ability to meddle with our elections and other policies. "This is the price we pay for participating in organizations that want to be a global government. We provide $25 million dollars of the OSCE budget each year, almost ten percent of the organization's budget, and now they want to come here and involve themselves in the outcome of our elections."

The American Policy Center is providing the phone numbers of both the White House and State Department, along with the email address of President Bush, and calling on thousands of Americans to protest the OSCE monitors.

Contact: Tom DeWeese (540) 341-8911