Nov. 2 election under new scrutiny
International team will monitor poll sites in Ohio, 4 other states for 1 st time in history
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Jon Craig
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 
 
For the first time, international poll observers plan to monitor the Nov. 2 presidential election in five states, including Ohio.

Monitors from Australia, Argentina, South Africa and Thailand arrived in Columbus last weekend to meet with election experts at Ohio State University and Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell’s office. Separate meetings with advocates of voting rights and campaignfinance reform took place yesterday.

"For those who don’t trust the system, you have all the ingredients to assure there is going to be cheating," said Horacio Boneo, a consultant and professor from Brazil who is one of the monitors.

In all, 20 international observers from 14 countries will monitor the U.S. election in Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Missouri.

Carlo LoParo, Blackwell’s spokesman, said state law won’t allow them into Ohio polling places during the vote, but they can watch from 100 feet away like other outside groups.

Karen Decker, project manager for Fair Election International, which is sponsoring the visitors, said Missouri law allows international observers to watch from a closer vantage inside the polling places.

Other monitors visiting Ohio this week are Irene Baghoomians, a law professor from Australia; Denis Kadima, executive director of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa; and Somsri Hananuntasuk, of Thailand, executive director for the Asian Network for Free Elections.

It is not certain where each will be assigned on Election Day. Baghoomians said, "It just seems very late. . . . This is bad public policy to be driven by crisis."

Members of Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, who met with the group and officials from the Franklin County Board of Elections, agreed.

The alliance’s Susan Truitt, of Upper Arlington, said there are a variety of concerns, including whether former felons will be notified that they are allowed to vote. Also, Truitt is concerned about the integrity of electronic machines to be used in seven counties — including Franklin, Knox, Pickaway and Ross.

Truitt and Diane Sturges, another alliance member from Upper Arlington, asked whether Blackwell has a plan for voter education or poll-worker training.

Afterward, LoParo said that about $2 million will be spent in coming weeks on a far-reaching multimedia campaign to instruct voters on how to use a punch-card ballot. It will include placards, brochures, radio and television ads and newspaper s or plastic wrappers with detailed voting instructions.

On Saturday, the international observers watched as residents of a Columbus neighborhood were registered to vote.

They also met with OSU assistant law professor Daniel P. Tokaji yesterday.

Tokaji told the visitors that there is an arrogance among some Americans that "We’ve got the best democracy in the world. It turns out not to be true. Not all the problems identified in the 2000 election have been resolved."

"There’s been a recognition . . . we have serious difficulties," he said.

More than 70 percent of Ohio’s registered voters are expected to use punch-card ballots in 68 counties. Two counties with electronic voting machines, Franklin and Lake, use punch cards as their absentee and provisional ballots.

Tokaji allowed the foreign visitors to try out a punch-card ballot from last year’s recall of California Gov. Gray Davis. About 7 percent of the punchcard votes didn’t count, he said, compared with 1.5 percent for those cast using optical-scan devices and less than 1 percent for electronic machines.

The international monitors on Thursday will attend the second in a series of seminars on election issues at OSU’s Moritz College of Law, 55 W. 12 th Ave. For details about the free conference on electronic voting machines, go to www.moritzlaw.osu.edu.