Texas Attorney General Threatens Foreign Poll Watchers

[Bill USA]

(emphasis my own)

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/greg_abbott_un_poll_watchers.php?ref=fpa


In a letter dated Tuesday to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Abbott threatened to prosecute any of its monitors who step within 100 feet of a Texas polling place on Election Day. The threat came even though U.S. State Department officials earlier this year had invited the monitors to observe the election.

“If OSCE members want to learn more about our elections processes so they can improve their own democratic systems, we welcome the opportunity to discuss the measures Texas has implemented to protect the integrity of the elections,” Abbott wrote. “However, groups and individuals from outside the United States are not allowed to influence or interfere with the election process in Texas.”

The letter provoked a swift response on Wednesday from Janez Lenarcic, the head of the international group’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, who wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing his concern that the threat of prosecution was contrary to the U.S.’s obligations as an OSCE participant.

“The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable,” Lenarcic said in a news release about the letter. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

(more)

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Come on, Janez ...

Send about 200 OSCE observers, have their guides/escorts place a line 100 from a polling place, and have your folks all stand inside of the line.

Make this idiot prove his bravado.