A team of international observers will monitor the U.S. presidential election in November, the State Department said. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was invited to monitor the election by the State Department. The observers will come from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. It will be the first time such a team has been present for a U.S. presidential election. "The U.S. is obliged to invite us, as all OSCE countries should," OSCE spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said. "It's not legally binding, but it's a political commitment. They signed a document 10 years ago to ask OSCE to observe elections." Thirteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, suggesting that civil rights violations may have occurred in Florida and other states during the 2000 presidential election, wrote to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in July, asking him to send observers. After Annan rejected their request, saying the Bush administration must make the application, the Democrats asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to do so. In a letter dated July 30 and released last week, Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kelly told the Democrats about the invitation to the OSCE rather than to the United Nations.
