Texas vs UN Observers

If their primary objective was to stop voter fraud, they would welcome this. Instead, they just want to make sure they disenfranchise as many non-white voters as possible, so of course they don't want them here.

 

Mr Abbott should be more concerned with that home town group True the Vote.

Those people are crazy with a capital C!

 

It's more like they think that the UN will be the ones committing voter fraud, because they're not Americans and thus have no business in an American election.

 

I'm not a Greg Abbott fan, but I agree with this entirely. The UN has zero place in policing elections in the United States.

 

It's too bad Texas government has become so bad that it's even brought up as a possibility.

 

The UN is very unpopular with conservatives. With some of the bills and accords they've been working on lately they've only become less popular. It's good political theater for a politician in Texas to take this stance.

 

The US is part of the UN right? It would seem kind of hypocritical.

 

The UN doesn't police elections anywhere. All they do is observe and make comments afterwards. They've been doing this in the US for years. What is Texas trying to hide all of a sudden?

 

If you think this is meddlesome, wait until Obama signs the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The U.N. will try regulating everything going into the air over the high seas as well as everything going in or coming out of our territorial oceans. Even if Romney wins the presidency, Obama will sign this abomination as a lame duck. So, get used to the U.N. poking its nose into our affairs. No other nation will let them -- only the U.S. because we play by the rules.

 

I was unaware of this. Never heard this before.

 

How's it hypocritical? do we have a history of rigged presidential elections? is this a banana republic?

 

But I keep hearing over and over again that the conservative poll watchers are just going to be observers, and will not interfere nor intimidate voters.

Now I am hearing that UN observers, would commit voter fraud?

 

No, but we have a history of disenfranchising poor and minority voters.

 

What's hypocritical about it? The US, like every sovereign state, possesses the right to tell the UN "F off" whenever it wants to. Pretty simple.

 

I think this thread demonstrates why Abbott objects to UN observers -- Americans think UN observation is an insult to our electoral process. Nevermind that we insist on heaping such indignities on other countries' elections.

 

It's not a punishment or event based though, it's routine procedure:

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision...ries-headed-us-election-day/story?id=17555988

Even so, this voter ID stuff is fairly worrisome given it's first time around. Elections can be close in the US and with only 2 possible winners, even small irregularities can impact the outcome greatly. (edit: from reading on, seems like it's not in effect for the coming election?)

Being a member of the UN means the US accepts certain things. Every time the US, or any nation, ignores parts of its obligations it deligitimizes the UN further. This seems to be a rather benign obligation. Is there something you're worried could/would happen that I'm not catching here?

I don't see how they can interfere anyway. The only thing they would do is report irregularities if any. How does that hurt anyone? Many would argue that they wouldn't even do that, given the role the US plays in the UN.

 

this was going to be my response, too. spot on

 

The Voter ID law will not be in effect for this election but everyone damn well knows some idiot polling workers are going to think its in effect and hassle people for photo IDs (hence why there are observers)

Texas is pretty notorious for poorly run elections as is so observers seem rather appropriate.

 

That's funny, because I think our elections are an insult to our electoral process.