US: Former president Jimmy Carter, who has acted as an election monitor in countries around the world, said yesterday that the conditions for a fair presidential election do not meet international standards in Florida.
"The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely," Mr Carter wrote in the Washington Post, amid rising concerns of a repetition of the voting debacle in Florida in 2000 when thousands of voters were disenfranchised.
Four years ago Florida - and the presidency - was awarded to George W. Bush who was ahead by 537 votes when the US Supreme Court stepped in to stop counting.
Touchscreen machines were introduced in Florida after that election to replace punchcards, but critics have said these are open to abuse and have no paper back-up. There were disturbing signs that some of Florida's leading officials "hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms", Mr Carter said. "Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee.
"The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African-Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African-Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons."
Mr Carter also accused the top election official in Florida of playing a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Mr Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue. Florida voting officials "have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process", he said.
Mr Carter also claimed that Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, the President's brother, "has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future".
The Carter Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, has monitored more than 50 elections worldwide, most recently in Venezuela and Indonesia. After the 2000 election, Mr Carter and former president Gerald Ford led a commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. Many of their key recommendations were not implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes, he wrote.
"The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair."
A team of international observers has been touring the US, monitoring preparations for the upcoming election. Organised by the San Francisco human rights group Global Exchange, they met voters, voting-rights groups and local officials to discuss voter disenfranchisement, the security of electronic voting machines and the influence of money in politics.
They would seek to ensure "the elections that are run are responsive, they are transparent and they are fair", Ms Brigalia Bam, chairwoman of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, told a press conference.
The 20-member group includes lawyers, former elected officials, election experts and international activists. One of the monitors has observed elections in South Africa, Bosnia, Tanzania, Kosovo and Sri Lanka on behalf of the Irish Government, the UN and the European Union. The Bush administration has also invited a team from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to send observers.
"With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida," Mr Carter said.