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An international observer mission has reported that the US elections have been “clouded” by legal uncertainty and “unprecedented attempts by Donald Trump to undermine public confidence.”
A preliminary report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pointed to systemic weaknesses in the US elections, as well as the stress imposed by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump’s calls for an end to the vote count. in certain states based on false claims of fraud.
“Unfounded allegations of systematic deficiencies, especially by the incumbent president, even on election night, damage public confidence in democratic institutions,” says the report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights ( ODIHR) and the parliamentary assembly of the organization.
“With Covid and so many things changing at the last minute practically for the voter and for the electoral administration, there was a feeling of unease or confusion,” ODIHR head of mission, Polish diplomat Urszula Gacek, told The Guardian. “And on top of that, it has a headline that is doing something we’ve never seen before, casting doubt on the actual process and making the way they cast their vote a political statement as well.”
The OSCE report pointed to state-level efforts to adjust voting procedures in light of the pandemic, and then the series of legal challenges to those adjustments (mostly from Republicans), as a source of considerable confusion when the time to vote.
“There was an unprecedented volume of litigation over the voting processes in the months leading up to the elections, with more than 400 lawsuits filed in 44 states, some still in court a few days before the elections,” the report says. “The legal uncertainty caused by this ongoing litigation placed an undue burden on some voters wishing to cast their ballots and on election administration officials.”
The problems caused by the pandemic and an erratic president compounded long-term systemic problems, the OSCE found, many of which hurt the poor and ethnic minorities, such as different identity proof requirements at polling stations, which according to the report, they are “unduly restrictive” for some voters.
“If the only thing you could use was a college student card and you’re not a student, or a driver’s license and you don’t drive, or a passport and you never travel anywhere, you can imagine that certain economically disadvantaged groups will be affected in a way. disproportionately and certain ethnic minorities could be excluded, ”Gacek said.
The report also referred to the deprivation of rights of offenders and ex-offenders. He said: “An estimated 5.2 million citizens are deprived of their rights due to a criminal conviction, although about half of them have already served their sentences.”
“These voting restrictions contravene the principle of universal suffrage,” the report concluded.
Gacek said that federal emergency funding of $ 400 million for state election administrations had not been enough and the shortfall came from private sources. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, contributed $ 400 million.
“But when you look at the $ 14 billion that has been spent on the campaign, and juxtaposes it to an administration that has had to rely on philanthropists to help them run the election, I think it’s interesting,” Gacek said.
