PRESS RELEASE
October 30, 2008
For Further Information:
Ben Manski, Liberty Tree 1(608)
239-6915
Kevin Zeese, True Vote, 1(301) 996-6582
Grace Ross, voting rights activist 1(617) 291-5591
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange 1(415) 235-6517
UN Election Observers Requested for U.S.
Election
(Washington D.C.) — A coalition of U.S. pro-democracy
organizations today petitioned the members of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations for international election
observers for the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Coalition
representatives today visited the U.S. Embassies of ECOSOC member
nations New Zealand, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, France, United Kingdom,
and Sweden, and plan to visit ECOSOC offices in New York City tomorrow
to request election observers to document violations of American voting
rights, to guarantee the election results are tabulated accurately, and
to bring the force of international law to the United States to
guarantee the human rights of American citizens. They submitted the
petition now, they said, in order to place their request on record
ahead of the coming Election Day.
“The international community came to the aid of past American movements
for civil rights, free speech, and independence. We are asking for the
same support today. U.S. elections remain undemocratic and rife with
voting rights violations, and international election observers are
needed.” said Ben Manski, executive director of the pro-democracy
group, Liberty Tree.
The petition points to international covenants, conventions and the
Declaration for Human Rights itself as a basis for supporting the right
of U.S. citizens to freely choose their president and their right to
seek international assistance. The petition points to an often
overlooked history of voting rights violations that culminated in the
challenged U.S. Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Many of
these voting rights violations were clearly racially based and directly
contravene the U.S.’s signature on the International Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination.
The attention paid to election problems in the 2004 election was both
more extensive and more pre-emptive than in 2000 which increased
awareness and helped fuel important election law changes. However, the
more flagrant bias in the role of the federal government in election
law enforcement priorities and what appears to be continued refinement
and condoning of election fraud and voter suppression have probably
worsened the situation.
“If nothing else, they must document and expose to the rest of the
world – that we cannot guarantee our voting rights, nor even enough
integrity in our complicated and partisan system that the 2008
Presidential Election will have integrity, integrity which both the
elections of 2000 and 2004 clearly lacked,” states Grace Ross, 2006
Massachusetts Gubernatorial Candidate and long-time human rights
activist, who spearheaded a request for UN election observers before
the 2004 Presidential Elections.
Kevin Zeese of TrueVote warns that “Problems with voting and
registration of voters are being reported in many parts of the United
States. We have had two questionable and problem-ridden
presidential elections in 2000 and 2004. Americans are losing faith in
their democracy and international observers are needed to provide an
independent, official review of what is occurring.”
Grace Ross explains: “Hundreds of US based organizations have
participated in exposing what happened in 2000 and 2004, sued various
bodies of government, fought for legislative remedies, have monitored
election changes since and are now organizing extensively to educate
voters and put various local protections in place as best they can.”
“Suppose the upcoming processes are as tainted as the last ones?”
concluded Ms. Ross, “Many fought for domestic solutions last
time, all of those attempts failed – and we are no closer to protecting
our voting rights this time. Where then can we turn except to ask
the international community to stop these human rights violations in
the U.S.?”
Summary
of Petition to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations for
International Election Observers for the 2008 United States
Presidential Election
October 30, 2008
“We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations in the United
States, hereby petition the United Nations through the Economic and
Social Council for protection of our human rights through provision of
election observers and monitors for the upcoming U. S. Presidential
election on November 4th, 2008. We request observers to assess the
breadth of voting irregularities and document any voting rights
violations that may occur during this 2008 presidential election.
In light of the critical importance of the right to representation in
our government, guaranteed through U.S., law including documents such
as the Bill of Rights and Constitution and legal precedent,
United Nations’ documents to which the U.S. is a party such as the UN
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, we are requesting international
assistance in providing non-partisan witness to the process and
assuring to the extent possible universal voting rights for the entire
U.S. citizenry this November, 2008.
We are requesting this assistance due to serious concerns regarding
enfranchisement in the upcoming 2008 presidential election based both
on historical discrimination and exclusion of the rights of certain
populations to vote and to have their votes counted. There is broad
evidence from both the U.S. Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004,
that there were patterns of election fraud, voter suppression and
intimidation. The gold standard of predicting the outcome of elections,
exit polls, which have continued to be more reliable over time, showed
clear victory of the Democratic Candidate in both of these Presidential
elections. A much delayed count of all the actual ballots in Florida
from the 2000 elections, showed that the Democratic Candidate had in
fact won the vote; unfortunately, a complete recount had been denied at
the time of the election.
While the world is perhaps most aware of evidence in the state of
Florida in 2000 and the state of Ohio in 2004, there are much broader
patterns of tampering with the vote that lead numerous election experts
and much of the U.S. public to believe that the U.S. may have
experienced two illegitimate elections. This, in addition to and
potentially informed by historical problems and voting rights
violations in previous elections and significant evidence of violations
leading up to this 2008 election, give reasons to believe election
fraud and voter suppression may be equally or more widespread this
election. Sources of possible remedy from within the U.S. to date have
been attempted and have been insufficient to protect our rights or the
integrity of our elections.
We recognize that the most fundamental purpose of election observers is
to verify the fairness of elections. We also recognize that the
baseline of international standards for fair voting cannot be met in
the U.S. electoral system, which essentially consist of 52 different
electoral states each of which is overseen by a politically partisan
administration. However, it is the very partisan nature of our
oversight that determines the critical need for non-partisan observers
from outside our country. Given the world impact of U.S. elections and
our government’s stated mission of bringing democracy to the rest of
the world, the importance of world scrutiny of the reasonable accuracy
of U.S. elections is critical both to the protection of the human
rights of the U.S. people and the interests of the rights of many
across the world.
No More Stolen Elections!, P.O. Box 260217, Madison, WI 53726-0217 USA
Global Exchange, 2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor - San Francisco, CA
94110 USA
Liberty Tree, 122 State Street, Suite 405, Madison, WI 53704 USA
TrueVote.US, 2842 N. Calvert St. , Baltimore, MD 21218 USA
Economic Human Rights Project, 10 Oxford St., #2R, Worcester, MA 01609
USA
Ed. Note: The full
petition runs 40 pages including endnotes.