Will the 2004 US Election Be Free and Fair?
 

The Bush side is reportedly mobilising thousands of paid loyalists to challenge the credentials of first-time voters at polling places in Florida

By KEVIN J. KELLEY
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

INTERNATIONAL election observers, including three from Africa, are expressing concern about practices that could unfairly affect the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election in the US.

"Voter suppression" efforts in key states are causing particular worry among election monitors.

The Republican Party is reportedly mobilising thousands of paid loyalists to challenge the credentials of first-time voters at polling places in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and a few other "swing" states that are likely to determine the winner of the race for the White House.

"We're seeing efforts by the Republicans, unfortunately, in various parts of the country to suppress votes and intimidate people, to do things that bring back memories that are pretty bitter in the American mind from the year 2000," Democratic candidate John Kerry told a mostly African-American church congregation last week.

Democrats are counting on an outpouring of new voters on Tuesday. Voter-registration drives in key states are said to have put millions of young Americans and non-whites on the electoral rolls for the first time, and it is expected that most of these new registrants will vote for Democratic candidates.

Some experts are predicting that up to 60 per cent of eligible voters will cast ballots on November 2, compared with the 54 per cent turnout four years ago, when a total of 106 million Americans went to the polls.

Republicans deny that they will seek to disqualify anyone who is properly registered to vote. And election officials throughout the US insist that the November 2 voting will be conducted in a free and fair manner.

But voter suppression tactics by unknown parties may have been a decisive factor in the 2000 election results in Florida. That state enabled George W. Bush to win the presidency even though he lost the nationwide popular vote to his Democratic opponent.

Four years ago, leaflets circulated in some mainly African-American areas in Florida falsely claiming that voters would be able to cast ballots after Election Day. Thousands of blacks in Florida were also turned away from the polls in 2000 on disputed grounds of ineligibility. Mr Bush won the crucial contest in Florida by an official margin of 537 votes out of nearly six million cast in the state.

Similar and additional problems that could jeopardise the election’s legitimacy may occur this Tuesday, some election monitors are warning. The international observer team assembled by a California-based activist group visited five states last month, focusing in part on potential disenfranchisement of black and other racial-minority voters. The 20-person delegation, which included members from Ghana, South African and Zambia, said in a report that "the franchise in the United States is generally restrictive, limiting citizens’ voting as more a privilege than a right."

The international monitors pointed, for example, to laws in 48 of the 50 states that deny voting rights to felons who are serving prison sentences. Nearly all the world’s democracies, including Kenya, allow prisoners to vote, according to the nongovernmental group Penal Reform International.

Eight states, Florida among them, also prohibit convicted felons from voting even after they have served their sentences.

It is estimated that as many as 4.7 million Americans are disenfranchised as a result of restrictions placed on felons. And the impact is felt disproportionately by African-Americans, who are barred from voting at a rate seven times the national average, according to researchers at NGOs. About 13 per cent of all black men in the US may be affected.

Advocates of full voting rights for convicted criminals argue that this form of disenfranchisement is similar in its effects to the literacy tests and poll taxes that prevented many African-Americans from voting during the first half of the 20th century.

An international election monitors recommend in their report that voting rights be automatically restored when an offender is released from prison.

The observers further recommend that the US adopt a system of public financing of election campaigns so as to reduce the influence of corporate and personal wealth on the election process.

Election officials in various states should ensure that there are paper records of all votes cast, the observers suggested. They expressed particular concern about electronic voting machines that do not produce print-outs that can be examined during recounts in close elections.

Monitors from several countries will be present on Tuesday at polling places around the US. A few of these observers are being sponsored by the same California group that organised the earlier delegation. About 100 more monitors are being supplied by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe at the invitation of the US State Department.

Given the closeness of the race as measured in opinion surveys, legal disputes are likely to erupt at hundreds of polling places on Tuesday. And many of these cases will probably be docketed at courts, raising the possibility that the outcome of the US election may once again remain unknown for days or weeks.

Comments\Views about this article