COPENHAGEN, 31 October 2022 – Some 110 members of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly from more than 30 countries are set to travel to the United States to observe the 8 November midterm elections. Supported by about 30 staff members, the delegation of parliamentarians is the largest ever deployed. It will work closely with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human mission, consisting of 40 long-term observers deployed around the country and 17 experts based in Washington, D.C., headed by Tana de Zulueta (Italy).
The Special Co-ordinator of the OSCE short-term observer mission is OSCE PA President Margareta Cederfelt (Sweden), who published an op-ed about the mission’s objectives on 28 October. “Two decades after our first deployment of international election observers to the United States,” President Cederfelt wrote, “an election observation mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is gearing up for the pivotal midterm elections.” She noted that size of the observation mission “demonstrates our strong commitment to helping to increase transparency and build trust in the U.S. electoral system.”
The head of the OSCE PA mission is Pere Joan Pons (Spain), who noted that parliamentarians bring a unique perspective to the observation process. “As people who have competed in elections ourselves, we are sensitive to issues of fairness and ensuring a level playing field for candidates,” Pons said today. “At the same time, as observers, we are impartial, evaluating the elections solely on the basis of their adherence to a set of democratic standards that the United States and all OSCE countries have agreed to.”
Observers will assess the elections against commitments in the OSCE Copenhagen Document of 1990, paying particular attention to the campaign environment, the legal framework, election administration, new voting technologies, redistricting issues, election day procedures, and media coverage. The OSCE PA observers will participate in two days of briefings in Washington before deploying to a number of states around the country for election day observation.
The observers’ preliminary findings and conclusions will be delivered at a press conference in Washington on 9 November, which will also stream live at www.oscepa.org.
For previous OSCE PA assessments of U.S. elections, please click here.
Watch a video on OSCE PA election observation here.
To read the op-ed that Margareta Cederfelt wrote about the observation mission, please click here.
