AP Exclusive: Pandemic shrinking Europe's monitor of US vote [View all]
Source: Associated Press
WILLIAM J. KOLE
, Associated Press
Sep. 18, 2020
Updated: Sep. 18, 2020 1:48 p.m.
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2004, file photo, parliamentarians Goran Lennmarker, right, of Sweden and Stavros Evagorow, of Cyprus, observe the American voting process as voters cast their ballots at Robbinsdale City Hall in Robbinsdale, Minn. The two men are members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Officials said Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the security organization had drastically scaled back plans to send up to 500 observers to the U.S. to monitor the Nov. 3 presidential election, and now will deploy just 30.Jim Mone/AP
Europe’s largest security organization said Friday that it has drastically scaled back plans to send as many as 500 observers to the U.S. to monitor the Nov. 3 presidential election and now will deploy just 30 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — better known for monitoring elections in countries such as Belarus or Kyrgyzstan than the U.S. — has spent months trying to figure out how to safely keep tabs on an election it worries will be “the most challenging in recent decades” as Americans pick a president in the throes of a global health crisis.
The OSCE's mission originally was to have involved 100 long-term and 400 short-term observers to the U.S. starting this month, but health concerns and restrictions on travel prompted the Vienna-based organization to pare that back to 30 observers, spokesperson Katya Andrusz told The Associated Press.
Suddenly, what was going to be Europe's largest-scale U.S. election monitoring effort ever has become one of its smallest. The OSCE sent 49 observers for the 2018 midterms and about 400 for the 2016 presidential election.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/AP-Exclusive-Pandemic-shrinking-Europe-s-monitor-15578210.php
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