 (L-R): Danilo Silva (Attorney from Ecuador), Ariela Peralta (Humphrey Fellow from Uruguay) and Sadiq Kamal (Humphrey Fellow from Pakistan) monitor U.S. elections in the Washington, DC area. |
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Washington College of Law (WCL)
Humphrey Fellows Monitor Election
On election day last November a group of international lawyers and judges gathered at local polling places to monitor the 2004 U.S. presidential election, keeping an eye out for irregularities while also learning about the American system.
Most of the observers were part of the Humphrey Fellowship program, which brings accomplished mid-career professionals from around the world to the U.S. for a year of study and experience. Since 1980 WCL has served as a host institution. The Fellows were led by Dr. Robert Pastor, director of AU’s Center for Democracy and Election Management, and formerly with the Carter Center, where he led teams of election monitors to 30 countries.
The group watched as electronic machines crashed repeatedly at Virginia polling sites. They found people waiting hours in lines at polling places that seemed understaffed and under-equipped. They observed a mismatch between the numbers of electronic votes and the voter signatures in a Maryland polling place. Participants also observed, and were surprised, that no identification was required in D.C. Fellows from Uruguay, Armenia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Pakistan, and Egypt all said that identification was required in their countries, and fingers are often inked to prevent re-voting.
Pastor was invited to present the findings at a U.S. Senate forum in December. He reported how “only one state—Missouri—welcomes international observers, and in Virginia and Maryland, officials insisted we visit ‘designated sites.’ The State Department and the world would have condemned such restrictions if they had been imposed on U.S. observers going abroad.”
In many ways, some Humphrey Fellows concluded, the American election system worked well. In contrast to their home countries, soldiers were nowhere in sight. Election Day was peaceful and well ordered, in spite of the long lines. But with its lack of identification procedures and inconsistent administration, they said, it also had all the hallmarks of a problem waiting to happen.
Adapted from an American Weekly article, Nov. 9, 2004.