What Worries Foreign Election Observers
If ever the United States needed neutral, outside observers overseeing its democracy, it’s now—with presidential-election results still pending and Donald Trump leveling baseless accusations of voter fraud and corruption.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which in September deployed an observer mission to the U.S. ahead of the November poll, anticipated that this election would be the “most challenging in recent decades.” Though the mission concluded in initial findings that the vote was “competitive and well managed” despite the obstacles posed by the coronavirus pandemic, it also raised a number of concerns—chief among them that “baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions.”
