Texas AG puts foot down over UN poll watchers in letter to Clinton

Text of the letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

October 25, 2012

The Honorable
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Madam Secretary:

Yesterday you received a letter from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) asking that the U.S. Department of State take steps to ensure the OSCE’s election observers are not “restrained in their activities” while in the State of Texas. It appears that OSCE is under the misimpression that the State Department can somehow help its representatives circumvent the Texas Election Code. Texas law prohibits unauthorized persons from entering a polling place—or loitering within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance—on Election Day. OSCE monitors are expected to follow that law like everyone else.

As you know, Texas election laws govern anyone who participates in Texas elections. The fact that representatives of the United States joined the U.S.S.R, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other OSCE member-nations in signing a document at a 1989 conference in Copenhagen has absolutely no bearing on the administration of elections or laws governing elections in the State of Texas. Yet the OSCE invokes the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document to seek your help ensuring that its representatives are not “restrained” by Texas law. If the OSCE wishes to visit Texas during election season, we welcome the opportunity to educate its representatives about the State’s electoral process. But OSCE is not above the law and its representatives must at all times comply with Texas law when they are present in this state.

While the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document cited in the OSCE letter is legally irrelevant and will have no impact on the State’s administration of the November elections, for the sake of accuracy you should know that the letter misconstrues OSCE’s own governing documents. Indeed, the OSCE claims that requiring its representatives to comply with Texas law somehow contravenes paragraph 8 of the Copenhagen document. That is false.

In fact, paragraph 8 specifically stipulates that OSCE representatives may only observe elections “to the extent allowed by law.” As you know, in the United States that means both state and federal law. The OSCE’s letter states only that its observers are committed to compliance “with all national laws and regulations.” This statement may simply reveal that the OSCE is unfamiliar with our nation’s federalist system. On the other hand, it may reveal that the OSCE does not consider itself restrained by state law. Texas needs OSCE’s assurance that its representatives will abide by Texas law when they are present in this state. We have not received that assurance.

In addition to my desire to defend and enforce Texas election laws, I am also concerned that an unnecessary political agenda may have infected OSCE’s election monitoring activities. The OSCE has published policy recommendations and other reports that raise objections to state laws that prohibit convicted felons from voting, prevent voter registration fraud, and require voters to present a photo identification at the polling place. The OSCE may object to photo identification laws and prohibitions on felons voting—but our nation’s Supreme Court has upheld both laws as entirely consistent with the U.S. Constitution. And perhaps ironically, the OSCE representative leading the mission to the United States hails from the Netherlands, which has a photo identification law for voters. According to the Dutch government’s official website: “checking identity documents helps fight fraud.” Why the OSCE appears to now question voter identification laws in the United States is beyond reason. Perhaps it is just politics. Regardless, the OSCE’s perspective on Voter ID is legally irrelevant in the United States.

Indeed, contrary to the principles of “political pluralism” articulated in the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document, the OSCE has recently coordinated with a number of plainly partisan organizations in the United States. This appears to reflect a concerted effort to politicize an initiative that was previously perceived as an international information exchange program. While Texas may welcome visitors from any nation or international organization who wish to learn more about the steps the State has taken to protect the integrity of state elections, we need not open our doors and accommodate an international effort affiliated with partisan organizations in the United States that wish to suppress electoral integrity.

The case in point is OSCE’s coordination with Project Vote, an overtly partisan organization that was founded by and closely affiliated with ACORN. As you know, ACORN collapsed in the wake of a national voter registration fraud scandal that resulted in multiple criminal prosecutions for violations of state and federal election laws. Just this week, Project Vote boasted that it was advising OSCE on which issues to study—and which states to monitor—this election cycle. In light of Project Vote’s history of voter registration fraud and its more recent failed attempt to enjoin Texas election laws that were enacted to prevent fraud, no legitimate international body would affiliate with Project Vote. Consequently, OSCE’s affiliation with this dubious organization necessarily undermines its credibility and the independence of its election monitors.

Rather than work closely with domestic partisan organizations to advance their shared political agenda, the OSCE should consult the report that President Jimmy Carter and Secretary of State James Baker issued as co-chairmen of the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform. As you know, President Carter is one of the world’s most well-known election monitors. Given President Carter’s experience in this area, it is noteworthy that the report he authored found: “The electoral system cannot inspire confidence if no safeguards exist to deter and detect fraud or to confirm the identity of voters.” Apparently the Netherlands agrees with that assessment, which is why the Dutch government similarly requires voters to present a photo identification before casting their ballots.

The United States Constitution authorizes the States to regulate the conduct of state and federal elections within their borders. In Texas, the Legislature has exercised its prerogative to implement laws that preclude felons from voting, prevent groups like Project Vote from questionable voter registration activities, and instill confidence in the electoral system by requiring voters to present a photo identification. While we welcome international visitors who wish to engage in a legitimate information exchange, we have no interest in being lectured by the OSCE about how best to conduct the State of Texas’ business.

Unlike the unelected bureaucrats at the OSCE, our State’s leaders and decision-makers were duly elected by Texas voters. Elected members of the Texas Legislature enacted the Texas Election Code to ensure our State’s elections are free, fair, open, and reliable. The Election Code does not authorize OSCE’s representatives to enter the polling place and nothing in a document that may govern the OSCE’s conduct has any impact—legal or otherwise—on the conduct of elections in the State of Texas. If the OSCE does not wish to follow the laws that govern everyone else present in the State of Texas, including the voters who elect our State’s leaders, then perhaps it should dispatch its representatives to another state.

In closing, I have a simple request: Please work with the OSCE to ensure they agree to comply with Texas law. If they refuse to do so, OSCE’s representatives may be subject to legal consequences associated with any violations of state law.

Sincerely,
Greg Abbott
Attorney General of Texas

Obama, Clinton grant UN “poll watchers” diplomatic immunity, Texas AG says “bring it”

BCN Note- A showdown between Lone Star Texans Attorney General Abbott, Governor Rick Perry and Communist, Marxist and Socialist Barrack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton is quickly heating up over UN Monitors from the OSCE observing our elections.

As attention to this battle intensifies the fangs are coming out and the real reasons the United Nations are in our back yard is starting to come to light!

Obama granting this OSCE “poll watching” group “full diplomatic immunity”, meaning they are above the law and not required to follow our state election laws speaks volumes of why they are in our country.

When groups like ACORN (True Vote) although defunct are still very active under another name, ACLU, NAACP, SEIU, Al Sharpton you know there is an agenda. It seems this UN/OSCE delegation which has now grown to 150 or so has turned from apolitical to partisan. Recent research has revealed that the constitutional voter ID laws are the fuel that is igniting their increased presence in Tennessee and the US.

It is evident that their continued and increasing presence at polling places all over the US is going to fan a possible revolution if Obama loses that will be preceeded with a massive deluge of lawsuits challenging our elections and they will have the strength of an international body at their backs. Mark my word it’s clear as crystal.

Please read the article below and visit the New American website for many more outstanding articles. It was so informative I wanted to keep my rants short.

Sunday, 28 October 2012 15:00
Obama Backs UN-linked Election Monitors, but Texas Stands Firm
Written by  Alex Newman

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/13415-obama-backs-un-linked-election-monitors-but-texas-stands-firm

As the national scandal over United Nations-linked “elections monitors” in the United States continues to grow after Texas threatened potential prosecutions, the international outfit deploying “observers” demanded that the Obama administration come to its aid. The U.S. State Department promptly claimed that the UN-affiliated monitors would have “full” diplomatic immunity. But in the Lone Star State, officials fired back and upped the ante: Don’t mess with Texas.

On October 23, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a strongly worded letter to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) warning that its representatives could be prosecuted if they violate state law or are found within 100 feet of a polling place. Among the most serious concerns was the fact that the UN partner organization was working with discredited far-left radical groups to supposedly seek out conservative “voter suppression” schemes — mostly state laws aimed at preventing election fraud.

In a statement, the OSCE also said it would monitor “compliance” with unspecified “international obligations” supposedly applicable to the United States. The controversial organization, which includes as members the governments and dictators ruling Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and other nations, responded to Texas with its own letter to the U.S. State Department warning against any efforts to “restrain” its personnel.

“The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable,” complained Janez Lenarcic, chief of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) monitoring operations. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.” (Emphasis added.)  

The Obama administration responded to the controversy by purporting to offer the international “elections monitors” supposed “diplomatic immunity” — essentially claiming that they were above the law, even in Texas. The two monitors for Texas, scheduled to be deployed in Austin, are Conny Jensen from Denmark and Melanie Leathers from the United Kingdom, documents show. In an October 26 press conference, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland claimed that “in general, we give them protected status.”

The spokesperson also claimed there were “no sovereignty issues” involved, emphasizing, as Texas’s attorney general did, that the OSCE obviously has no authority over the states it chooses to monitor. “They have said that they do not intend to violate any laws while in the United States,” Nuland claimed. “So we are going to let the conversations go forward between the OSCE and Texas and see how that goes.”

In the Lone Star State, however, officials did not take kindly to the international whining or the Obama administration’s response. “No UN monitors/inspectors will be part of any TX election process,” tweeted Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, in support of his chief law-enforcement officer. GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz, a popular conservative who made opposition to UN schemes a key part of his campaign, also saluted Abbot for standing up to the scandal-plagued international outfit.  

The Texas attorney general, meanwhile, remained defiant despite State Department pronouncements and OSCE complaining. “UN-related vote monitors warn Texas: Don’t mess with us. My response: BRING IT,” Abbott tweeted in response. He also quoted Sam Houston saying: “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.” Following the tweets, Abbot also sent an official letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laying down the law. 

“It appears that OSCE is under the misimpression that the State Department can somehow help its representatives circumvent the Texas Election Code. Texas law prohibits unauthorized persons from entering a polling place — or loitering within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance — on Election Day,” the attorney general explained to Clinton. “OSCE monitors are expected to follow that law like everyone else.”

Of course, as Clinton already knows, Texas election laws govern anyone and everyone who wishes to participate in elections held in the Lone Star State, Abbott said. “The fact that representatives of the United States joined the U.S.S.R, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other OSCE member-nations in signing a document at a 1989 conference in Copenhagen has absolutely no bearing on the administration of elections or laws governing elections in the State of Texas,” he warned.

If the OSCE wants to visit Texas during the election, Abbott said the state would welcome the opportunity to educate its representatives about state elections — perhaps it could be useful to OSCE member regimes like the brutal communist tyrant ruling over Belarus. “But OSCE is not above the law and its representatives must at all times comply with Texas law when they are present in this state,” he added.

The 1990 OSCE governing document signed by the representatives of the U.S. government and cited by the international group in its pleas with the Obama administration is “legally irrelevant” in Texas and “will have no impact” on the way the state administers its election, Abbott pointed out. However, the attorney general still added that, even according to that agreement, observers are required to follow applicable law. In other words, the OSCE is making “false” claims.

In addition to misconstruing its own governing documents, in its letter to the Obama administration, the OSCE promised only to follow all “national” laws and regulations. “This statement may simply reveal that the OSCE is unfamiliar with our nation’s federalist system,” Abbott observed in his letter to Clinton. “On the other hand, it may reveal that the OSCE does not consider itself restrained by state law.”

In either case, Texas needs assurances from the OSCE that it intends to strictly comply with all state laws. So far, Abbott said, those assurances have not been forthcoming. There are other problems, too, however.  

“In addition to my desire to defend and enforce Texas election laws, I am also concerned that an unnecessary political agenda may have infected OSCE’s election monitoring activities,” the state’s top law enforcement officer explained, citing the international outfit’s objections to efforts aimed at preventing registration fraud as well as state laws requiring voter ID. “The OSCE may object to photo identification laws and prohibitions on felons voting — but our nation’s Supreme Court has upheld both laws as entirely consistent with the U.S. Constitution.”

Ironically, Abbott added, the OSCE’s U.S. election monitoring boss, diplomat Daan Everts, hails from the Netherlands, which requires that all voters present identification to help combat fraud. “Why the OSCE appears to now question voter identification laws in the United States is beyond reason. Perhaps it is just politics,” the letter stated. “Regardless, the OSCE’s perspective on Voter ID is legally irrelevant in the United States.”

Meanwhile, the attorney general also took the opportunity to blast the OSCE yet again for meeting with “plainly partisan” U.S. organizations. Among the American groups working with the OSCE are the NAACP, the ACLU, and assorted splinter groups like “Project Vote” formed after the taxpayer-funded, Obama-linked organization ACORN collapsed in disgrace amid charges of massive voting fraud.

In letters and meetings with the international monitors, those groups warned of alleged efforts by conservatives to “disenfranchise” minority voters. The OSCE promised to follow up on the half-baked accusations, drawing widespread criticism and ridicule across the country.

“This appears to reflect a concerted effort to politicize an initiative that was previously perceived as an international information exchange program,” Abbot wrote. “While Texas may welcome visitors from any nation or international organization who wish to learn more about the steps the State has taken to protect the integrity of state elections, we need not open our doors and accommodate an international effort affiliated with partisan organizations in the United States that wish to suppress electoral integrity.”

Of particular concern, Abbot said, was an organization known as Project Vote, which recently boasted that it was helping to advise the OSCE on what issues and jurisdictions to “monitor” this election. “In light of Project Vote’s history of voter registration fraud and its more recent failed attempt to enjoin Texas election laws that were enacted to prevent fraud, no legitimate international body would affiliate with Project Vote,” the attorney general wrote. “Consequently, OSCE’s affiliation with this dubious organization necessarily undermines its credibility and the independence of its election monitors.”

Abbott also took the opportunity to provide some constitutional education for Clinton and Washington, D.C., which seemingly view Texas and other sovereign U.S. states as mere provinces subject to the whims and dictates of the federal government. In the Lone Star State, at least, officials apparently know that the United States was founded under a system in which the central government has limited and specifically enumerated powers. 

“The United States Constitution authorizes the States to regulate the conduct of state and federal elections within their borders,” Abbott’s letter continues. “Unlike the unelected bureaucrats at the OSCE, our State’s leaders and decision-makers were duly elected by Texas voters. Elected members of the Texas Legislature enacted the Texas Election Code to ensure our State’s elections are free, fair, open, and reliable.”

Finally, the attorney general emphasized again, Texas’ election laws do not authorize OSCE representatives to enter polling places. If they do, there will be consequences. Nothing in any OSCE governing documents has any impact — legal or otherwise — on how elections are conducted in Texas, Abbott warned.

“If the OSCE does not wish to follow the laws that govern everyone else present in the State of Texas, including the voters who elect our State’s leaders, then perhaps it should dispatch its representatives to another state,” Abbot concluded. “In closing, I have a simple request: Please work with the OSCE to ensure they agree to comply with Texas law. If they refuse to do so, OSCE’s representatives may be subject to legal consequences associated with any violations of state law.”

Analysts and activists across the country promptly showered praise on the state of Texas and its officials for standing up to the controversial international scheme while protecting state sovereignty, constitutional values, and the rule of law. However, more than a few experts also warned that the UN and its affiliates were becoming increasingly threatening. If America hopes to maintain its freedom and sovereignty, it must continue to resist any and all efforts to impose or even legitimize purported international “authority” over the American people.

Iowa joins other states reigning in UN “poll watchers”, TN remains mute

Iowa has joined with Alabama and Texas as states listening to the will of the people and warning UN “poll watchers” that they will be arrested if they violate strict election and voting laws.

In a specific statement Iowas Secretary of State issued a warning to UN “poll watchers” that if they enter polling areas and are within 100 feet of a voting booth they will be arrested on the spot.

Many have reported seeing UN “poll watchers” inside election buildings meeting candidates and observing along side election officials as a few sources observing the observers have confirmed.

To date, in Tennessee we have not heard such a bold statement from our elected leaders even at the behest of many of their constituency.

Altough Tennessee State Senator Mike Bell did report via email, in a conversation recently with Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett, Bell went on to explain Hargett said the observers will only be there to “learn and observe and the will adhere to election laws.”

Senator Bell added that concerns about the observers were “overblown” but did affirm his distaste for the UN in this email statement, “First, I will say we should be completely out of the U.N.  This organization is (and) has always been controlled by interest who would like nothing better than to take down America.”

Multiple attempts to converse with other Tennessee local state and federal officials has gone unanswered.

Several concerned citizens from Bradley County, Tennessee are exploring the option of seeking court injunctions to stop the observation and potential overreach of UN/OSCE delegates while on US soil if our representatives fail to act.

The lack of response of our elected officials to protect our sovereignty and integrity of our election process should be noticed, especially in light of a recent Tn State House resolution by State Representative Kevin Brooks, HJR 587, condemning UN involvement in our communities, as it relates to Agenda 21, a UN agenda to transform our communities. The measure passed easily in the house and Senate but failed to get Governor Bill Haslams signature.

The letter below from Iowa Secretary of State Shultz lays down specific ground rules for UN involvement from observers and draws a line in the sand citing specific state laws that confines their activities in and around the polling booths.

(DES MOINES)—Matt Schultz, Iowa Secretary of State, issued the following statement in response to reports that members of a UN-chartered delegation are being dispatched across the United States, including Iowa, to observe the General Election:

“As Secretary of State, I support the efforts of other nations to learn more about our election process and ways in which they might improve their own election systems. We welcome the four international visitors to our great state.

The Texas Secretary of State recently drew the ire of the OSCE when he announced that UN International poll watchers would be arrested if they showed up within 100 feet of polling areas. However, it was reported yesterday that members of this organization are attempting to gain access to Iowa polling places on Election Day. My office met with two delegation representatives last week to discuss Iowa’s election process and it was explained to them that they are not permitted at the polls. Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.”

Iowa Code section 49.104 defines the limited number of individuals permitted at polling places on Election Day, and section 49.105 states that poll workers “shall order the arrest” of any persons violating these provisions.

Any election law violations can be reported to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office by calling the Election Hotline at 1-888-SOS-VOTE.

The OSCE recently responded to the Texas Secretary of State in a speech to NATO and in a letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton regarding Texas’ threats to arrest UN “poll watchers” that violate the law.

“The threat of criminal sanctions against [international] observers is unacceptable,” Janez Lenari, the director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), said in a statement. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

It shows that we have allowed way too much control by international bodies when they scathingly address the US and it’s people the way the OSCE Director Janez Lenari recently did.

This type of reprimand by the UN asserts that they have some type of ownership and supervision of a free people. This is unacceptable to a freedom loving country and should not be tolerated by those in office that represent us.

“The only thing between accepting tyranny from the UN is an undying desire from its patriots to remain sovereign and free!”

You can quote me on that one!
http://patdollard.com/2012/10/iowa-to-forbid-un-international-observers-at-elections/

http://m.wcfcourier.com/mobile-touch-2/?disableTNStatsTracker=1&asset=75e4c70f-76f3-599a-9722-8943b3e36379#75e4c70f-76f3-599a-9722-8943b3e36379