OSCE/ODIHR opens mission to assess congressional elections in the United States

WASHINGTON, 13 October 2010 - The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today formally opened an election assessment mission for the mid-term congressional elections to be held in the United States of America on 2 November.

The mission's deployment follows an invitation from the State Department. As a participating State of the OSCE, the United States is committed to invite ODIHR to observe its elections.

The mission, led by Miklos Haraszti, a former OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, comprises 12 international election experts from 12 OSCE participating States. The team will be based in Washington but will deploy experts to other areas of the United States.

The experts will assess and report on the overall framework for the conduct of the elections. They will focus on the election administration, including issues of voter registration and identification, campaign finance regulations, voting rights, voting systems and the media.

As part of the assessment process, the experts will meet with relevant governmental authorities, the election administration, candidates, political parties, the judiciary, civil society and the media.

ODIHR will not carry out systematic or comprehensive observation of the voting, counting, or tabulation on election day, but the experts plan to visit a limited number of polling stations across the country to follow election day procedures.

A final report will be issued about two months after the completion of the election process.

ODIHR has been following elections in the United States since 2002, most recently by sending a limited election observation mission to the 2008 presidential elections.