The U.S. State Department cracked open the door and now the invasion has begun. Foreign election monitors determined to oversee the U.S. election this November seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Even Jimmy Carter has gotten into the act. The bottom line is that the November election is being set up to humiliate the United States and place in doubt the legitimacy of our government.

Those calling for the election monitors, like Democrat California Representative Barbara Lee, argue that the move is necessary in order to “make certain that every person’s voice is heard, every person’s vote is counted.” Eddie Bernice Johnson, the Texas Democrat who is the leader of the thirteen members of Congress who originally started the process by writing to UN. Secretary General Kofi Annan, says “The presence of monitors will assure Americans that America cares about their standing in the world.”

The constant blather about “transparent and fair elections” and the “democratic process” is simply a smokescreen to hide the real purpose of the monitors. They are coming here to impose a political agenda. Virtually everyone involved in the election-monitoring scheme is a radically-active leftist committed to a political agenda that calls for the destruction of national sovereignty by replacing it with global governance. To implement such an agenda in the United States requires a breakdown in the trust of our national and state government institutions. That’s the true mission of the monitors. Consequently, the November election will resemble nothing ever before seen at the polls by Americans.

Consider the players in this game.  Secretary of State Colin Powell legitimized the presence of foreign election monitors by inviting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). A spokesman for the OSCE said the group’s purpose in the election is to “apply political pressure.” That group, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, is led by one of the most corrupt politicians in the United States.  

Alcee Hastings, the new president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, will be the man who actually appoints and assigns the group’s election monitors. Hastings was a federal judge who was caught in an FBI sting in the 1980’s for trying to take a $150,000 bribe. He was impeached by a Democrat-controlled Congress that voted 413-3 to oust him. The vote proves there were a lot of Democrats and a lot of fellow blacks who knew just how corrupt Hastings was. This year alone, Hastings is being investigated by both the federal and Florida state elections commissions. Bribery, kickbacks and intimidation are just a few of the tools Hastings uses to control his political fiefdom.  

Part of Hastings’ fiefdom is Broward County, Florida, one of the disputed areas in the 2000 election. Though the monitor proponents want to blame Governor Jeb Bush for election problems, it can be confidently speculated that Alcee Hastings had much more to do with choosing some of the corrupt election officials in that county than did the Governor. Hastings has clearly stated that he believes George W. Bush intends to steal the election. Clearly the OSCE is biased with a mission.

Next into the game is a group called Global Exchange. This far left group, headquartered in San Francisco, bills itself as “an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice.” For the record, the term “social justice” was invented by Karl Marx. Global Exchange promotes the radical Sustainable Development agenda of top-down government control over local representation. Its web site supports and praises Fidel Castro as a great humanitarian. Global Exchange hates free enterprise, private property, and cars. It is the poster child for the “think globally -- act locally” crowd who were demonstrating outside the Republican national convention in New York City this past August. It should be noted that Global Exchange calls itself a non-governmental organization (NGO). Only the United Nations officially sanctions NGO’s.  More importantly, Global Exchange is a private organization with absolutely no standing to bring election observers into this nation.

Yet on September 13th, Global Exchange announced that it had already brought a team of international election monitors into the country. The 20-person “pre-electoral fact-finding team” split into five groups and headed to key battleground states to conduct “investigations” in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Missouri and Ohio. The teams met with state and local elected officials, held town meetings, talked with community organizations and observed voter registration drives. Another team is scheduled to fan out across the nation in time for Election Day.

One of the leaders of the Global Exchange delegation is Dr. Brigalia Bam, Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa. Unlike the United States, South Africa is considered an emerging, but not stable, governmental system and has held only two successful national elections since 1994. Yet, Dr. Bam promotes herself as an election expert, saying, “Through sharing with Americans the democratic innovations and advances occurring around the world, we hope to bring to light the best practices that may benefit the U.S. political system.” Dr. Bam’s “light” is globalism and “social democracy,” now practiced in much of the European Union and South Africa. Its other name is Socialism.

Other members of the Global Exchange team are from India, Guatemala, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and a variety of Third World countries and UN international organizations.

Global Exchange said in its September 13th news release that its monitoring team is “non-partisan,” and that they just want to “boost voter confidence.” Such lofty goals don’t coincide with the rhetoric from Global Exchange’s founder, Medea Benjamin. She is currently on a speaking tour of key battleground states with Daniel Ellsberg, an anti-war activist and the man who stole top secret documents from the Pentagon in the 1970’s and released them to the media. Standing on a platform with Ellsberg at an appearance at Lane Community College in Oregon, Benjamin said the possible reelection of President Bush would lead to an escalation of the war in Iraq and an increase of anti-American sentiment throughout the world. She went on to appeal to the crowd to vote for John Kerry.

One final note to confirm the bias and leftist ties of Global Exchange; the group’s news releases are distributed by a public relations firm call Riptide Communications. Riptide’s website describes the mission of the company as one which “provides high quality press and public relations to groups and individuals committed to progressive social change.” Some of the causes and individuals Riptide has represented over the years include anti-war radical actress Susan Sarandon; a campaign to exonerate Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union; attacks on the American tobacco industry; and a wide range of the usual America bashing.

Now, right on cue, former President Jimmy Carter has stepped into the election observation game, claiming that voting arrangements in Florida do not meet “basic international requirements.” For two decades Jimmy Carter has fancied himself as some kind of expert on election observation. In fact, his many intrusions into the elections of sovereign nations have helped to make the practice acceptable. The fact is Jimmy Carter goes into those nations with his own agenda.

That agenda is clearly revealed in his comment about “international requirements.” As a former president, Carter should know that the United States is a sovereign nation that elects its own observers through local and state elections. Unlike most tinhorn dictatorships found around the world, our Republic insures that the American people are in control of their own election process, thus guaranteeing them the power to replace corrupt officials. The only place that process fails to work is in areas where government has gotten too much power and allows a demagogue like Alcee Hastings to control the process. Carter should also know that there are no “international requirements” for elections except in his personal vision of a world controlled by an international self-appointed elite. It should be obvious to anyone that Carter, a Democrat, has a bias against George Bush and his comments are designed to add legitimacy to the invading international monitors.

In a final point to complete the circle, the Democrat National Committee has deployed up to 25,000 lawyers to run a “voter protection program.” In other words, the Democrats intend to file a massive amount of lawsuits if things don’t go their way.

Foreign election monitors are pouring into our nation for one purpose; to enforce a political agenda that will affect the outcome of the election. There is nothing open, fair or non-partisan about it. The game plan is simple. The monitors will challenge poll results, the Democrats will file suit and the media will deem the election void. U.S. prestige as the shining beacon of freedom will be tarnished and our ability to govern our own elections, as we’ve done successfully for over 200 years, may be permanently lost.

Americans must understand now that their very liberty is at stake. None of these monitors have official standing to do anything in this nation. None should be allowed anywhere near polling places. None should be allowed to see official election documents and any local or state election official who meets, deals or offers services to the monitors should be thrown out of office. America’s election process does not belong to the international community -- yet.

Tom DeWeese is publisher and editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA.

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