UN Vote Monitors Draw Outrage from GOP's Voter Suppression Groups

By Hrafnkell Haraldsson, Politicus USA

23 October 12

epublicans hate the United Nations. They hate globalism and the world government that supposedly threatens to consume the freedoms Americans enjoy - at least before they themselves can strip them from us. Recent events aren't going to make them happy.

They brought it on themselves.

The Hill reports that "International monitors at US polling spots draw criticism from voter fraud groups." United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.

Of course, given that voter/election fraud groups is a conservative euphemism for voter suppression groups, it's not surprising they'd bristle at the idea of UN observation.

Greta Van Susteren says if we can't make our own eleections fair we ought to "hang it up." In other words, what the hell is up with conservatives not being able to blatantly suppress the vote this year? Some other "Patriot" yokel thew up this headline: "U.N. Eurotrash Will Monitor Polling Places Around the U.S. for ‘Voter Suppression'."

Glenn Beck's The Blaze went with this headline, answering their own question: "U.N. PARTNER TO MONITOR U.S. ELECTIONS FOR VOTER SUPPRESSION BY…CONSERVATIVES?"

Yes Glenn, by conservatives.

Just to be clear, Tea Party groups plan to deploy their stromtrooper bullies on Election Day to suppress the vote under the guise of "protecting us" from electionfraud - you know: minorities voting.

It is a sad commentary on conditions in the United States that we actually need the UN to protect our rights; rights, ironically, conservatives claim the UN threatens.

I never thought, product of America's Cold War might that I am, that the people of the United States would need the United Nations to protect us on our own soil from our own elites. That's something that is supposed to happen in developing nations, what I grew up thinking of as the Third World.

But it's real. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), ironically enough a Cold War product like myself, will, says The Hill, "deploy 44 observers from its human rights office around the country on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places. It's part of a broader observation mission that will send out an additional 80 to 90 members of parliament from nearly 30 countries."

You can imagine how unhappy conservative voter suppression groups are to have witnesses to their act ivies on Election Day, especially from a group that specializes in this sort of thing. The OSCE says that they are "a leading organization in the field of election observation. It conducts election-related activities across the 56 participating States, including technical assistance and election observation missions."

Good thing. Recent news tells me we're going to need all the help we can get.

The United States is one of those 56 states. You can bet if Romney wins, that will no longer be the case.

The Hill reports:

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of "a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities."

Predictably, "The request for foreign monitoring of election sites drew a strong rebuke from Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a conservative-leaning group seeking to crack down on election fraud."

Crack down on voting, you mean, given that Engelbrecht is excited about having thousands of volunteers suppressing the vote this year.. Yes, like Bulgaria, Romania, and Belarus, America, we do need the OSCE; we need them more than we have ever needed anything, this coming Election Day.

Engelbrecht whines that "These activist groups sought assistance not from American sources, but from the United Nations," she said in a statement to The Hill. "The United Nations has no jurisdiction over American elections."

Where else are they going to seek help from? They're not going to get help from you, who are trying to silence their vote, who are seeking to disenfranchise millions of Americans so that a few rich white folks can put their surrogate in the White House.

The Hill points out that, "Neil Simon, director of communications for the OSCE's parliamentary assembly, agreed the U.N. does not have jurisdiction over U.S. elections but noted all OSCE member counties, which include the United States, have committed since 1990 to hold free and democratic elections and to allow one another to observe their elections."

Free elections the GOP has decided we don't need after all. Trickle Down Economics has now become Trickle Down Voting Rights. The money doesn't trickle down folks, and you don't need me to tell you that the vote doesn't either.

Breitbart.com, of course, is in a tizzy. "Dr. Susan Berry" storms:

News of the UN-affiliated observers comes one day after Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak reported that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights has warned Americans not to elect Republican candidate Mitt Romney as the next president. Alluding to Romney's refusal to ban waterboarding in interrogation practices of terror detainees, Ben Emmerson of the UN said that electing Romney would be "a democratic mandate for torture."

We already know that this election will not be like any other election we have experienced. Because of Obama's overwhelming willingness to apologize to the world for the supposed "sins" of the United States, he has furthered the cause of the United Nations becoming a global government. As the Romney-Ryan campaign continues to gain momentum, we can expect more input than ever thought imaginable from other nations and the UN regarding what the U.S.'s actions and decisions should be. It is also sobering to remember that, even if Romney wins the election, Obama will still be president until January, enough time to do yet more considerable damage.

If you peruse the web you will find comments like this from conservative readers (these were at The Yeshiva World News):

1. I think there is a joke in this article, but I don't get it. We're worried about conservatives cheating at the polls? How about all those Chicago-vote-early-and-often folks? How about those black panthers in Philadelphia in 2008? They sure guarded the polling places. Also, we seem to be asking the wolves to guard the henhouse! Maybe it takeh is a joke, but the joke's on us, folks!!!


2. So is this what the UN spends its money on with our USA-provided taxpayer money??


3. #1, No, they're concerned about conservatives trying to prevent cheating.

The usual. Despite the lack of evidence for voter fraud anywhere, conservatives acting in the finest traditions of cognitive dissonance, have convinced themselves that liberals are stealing elections through voter fraud. These fine readers have somehow missed all the news of Republican shenanigans since President Obama was elected.

The same goes for sites like Patriots for America, where the headline…

Is This Constitutional? - "International monitors at US polling places draw
criticism"


…is followed by the question,

"Is this constitutional? If so, please explain how by referencing the U.S. Constitution only.
Twana

Unfortunately, folks, this "Twana" person is serious. She really wants you to explain how this can be constitutional, referencing only the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution isn't going to mention the United Nations. They didn't have the United Nations in 1789 (which I'm sure is a point "Twana" would raise. Rest assured, Twana, this is constitutional. Or do you perhaps not know what "observing" means?

Unsurprisingly, her readers are feeling, shall we say, typically aggressive and violent and would make Hitler proud:

with this action, every honest American citizen has been slapped in the face and betrayed yet again by a president who himself has made a complete mockery of our constitution since the first day he took office. this may get very ugly and my question is, will these monitors be just as willing to intervene every time they come across voter fraud at the polls by acorn and other liberals.

Yeah, okay, stupid question. Twana and her readers didn't read the article, just the headline (see that all the time here, too, don't we?) and they do not know what "observing" means.

The next one is the Nazi…er, I mean, Tea Party at it's best:

I have read ing (sic) the Constitution and no where (sic) in it does it give any one (sic) authority to monitor our elections! If some faggot wearing U.S. Blue shows up at any polling station, feel frree (sic) to kick his ass on the spot!

These people are living proof that Americans need the UN. I think that along with sending mosquito netting to Africa, we need to send mirrors to Red States. When they ask "Why?", all they will need to do for an answer is to lift up their mirrors and look into them.

And this comment captures conservative behavior perfectly:

If I go to the polls here in My district,and see even a HINT of intimidation,

I will come back and react in kind.

If I see even a HINT of a UN "observer",well,violence,of course,will not be

necessary,but NO-ONE with tender ears will want to hear the dressing-down

I'll hand the SOB,and there won't be a damn thing he/she can do about it.

Have Me arrested?For what? Disturbing the peace,maybe?I'll be out by morning,

I have an excellent lawyer.

This I promise.

Republicans are all in a tizzy over the origins of these vote monitors: places where icky brown foreign people come from. I dunno, reading the comments above I'll pick the "icky brown foreign people" over icky yokels who marry their sisters.

Erica Ritz, at The Blaze, asked, "Though, really, what inspires more confidence in fair elections than representatives from Kazakhstan?" I would ask, "Though, really, what inspires less confidence in fair elections than representatives of the Republican Party?"

As a dear friend of mine said, "sickening freaks."

Amen, sister.