Texas authorities have threatened to arrest international election observers

Originally posted by Connector


Yes, I know they are not the UN. The UN is not sending election observers, the OSCE is. Re-read the OP, we are talking about the OSCE, not the UN. I don't understand why you keep talking about the UN?

To clarify,
I did not mean to confuse things. I did bring up the UN.
I was participating in two threads and did get confused as the other was assertion that the UN had the right to send observers into the state to observe. OSCE has an agreement with Texas to observe by the rules and I have no problem with that.

The issue with precedent is the specific use of uninvited resources to monitor as was being asserted about the UN. That's an academic point for argument .

In this specific case OSCE has been REQUESTED by non-state entities. This is NOT acceptable as it is an infringment on the states right to free election without interference of any kind.

My apologies for confusing the issue here.

Originally posted by Valhall
reply to post by Connector

 

Please stop saying "precedent". There is no legal standing on this matter. You apparently do not understand the phrase "elected to". In the past the OSCE observers have participated simply as observers who were acquiring knowledge of the democratic process in a free country. These same observers then go to other countries, that have not been free countries or have newly accepted the democratic process, and apply the lessons learned from the various FREE countries they observed to ensure the democratic process is being observed in the questionable country.

In the past Texas ELECTED TO participate in this program. These observers have been clear that they are coming, and were invited into the country, to MONITOR the election process this time. They are no longer passive observers for the sake of knowledge transfer, they are now here to monitor...as if we were one of those dubious countries.

Guess what? Texas does not ELECT TO allow that and they have a law they can stand on to reject it.

There is no "precedent".

edit on 10-27-2012 by Valhall because: (no reason given)

A) I did not bring the term into this conversation. I was making a point for the person who did.

B) precedent definition

prec·e·dent [pres-i-duh nt; pri-seed-nt, pres-i-duh nt] noun

1. Law. a legal decision or form of proceeding serving as an authoritative rule or pattern in future similar or analogous cases.

2. any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations.

Notice #2

C) According to the OSCE they are only here to observe again...not monitor

In letters to Abbott and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose State Department invited the 44 election observers, Lenarčič reiterated that the group is only there to observe the elections.
“Our observers are required to remain strictly impartial and not to intervene in the voting process in any way,” Lenarčič said in a statement. “They are in the United States to observe these elections, not to interfere in them.”

Directly from OP's source.....

Originally posted by badgerprints

Originally posted by Connector


Yes, I know they are not the UN. The UN is not sending election observers, the OSCE is. Re-read the OP, we are talking about the OSCE, not the UN. I don't understand why you keep talking about the UN?

To clarify,
I did not mean to confuse things. I did bring up the UN.
I was participating in two threads and did get confused as the other was assertion that the UN had the right to send observers into the state to observe. OSCE has an agreement with Texas to observe by the rules and I have no problem with that.

The issue with precedent is the specific use of uninvited resources to monitor as was being asserted about the UN. That's an academic point for argument .

In this specific case OSCE has been REQUESTED by non-state entities. This is NOT acceptable as it is an infringment on the states right to free election without interference of any kind.

My apologies for confusing the issue here.

No worries......I have no horse in the race as I don't live there, hence me not taking any side of the issue in my previous posts. I just like to make sure all the facts are available.

I lived in Texas for 25 years. Texas is what America should be like. Loud and proud and not afraid to say/do whats right. It was just too hot in Houston as i got older. I miss Texas but i don't miss breaking out in a sweat 5 minutes after i shower when i step out the front door. OMG it is hot in Houston.

Originally posted by jimmiec
I lived in Texas for 25 years. Texas is what America should be like. Loud and proud and not afraid to say/do whats right. It was just too hot in Houston as i got older. I miss Texas but i don't miss breaking out in a sweat 5 minutes after i shower when i step out the front door. OMG it is hot in Houston.

Cold front came in last night. Weather will be great for about a month.
Time for a visit.

Originally posted by jimmiec
I lived in Texas for 25 years. Texas is what America should be like. Loud and proud and not afraid to say/do whats right. It was just too hot in Houston as i got older. I miss Texas but i don't miss breaking out in a sweat 5 minutes after i shower when i step out the front door. OMG it is hot in Houston.

Yea, its hot here too.. I'm down in South Texas in the coastal bend area but we did get a front and the climate is great right now.
Its funny seeing people wearing jackets in 60 degree weather

I might just go for a visit. I have a lot of friends in Texas. I have 2 kids there too. Just restored a car for one and they both came up to get it last week. Glad you guys are cooling it!

State Dept: Texas can’t arrest international election observers

International election observers planning to visit Texas polling places have “full immunity” from being arrested in the United States, the State Department said when discussing a letter from the Texas Attorney General.

More below:

washingtonexaminer.com...

why is it we send observers to a country when there is reason to suspect foul play in the voting process. yet it is not okay when others might have the same thought about ours?

a scenario. a very close election in a third world country. two candidates for the prime minister. one, the former vice prime minister and former member of the parliament.

the other, son of a former prime minister and vice prime minister and the country's former chief spy. he is also the governor of the country's largest province. the election comes down to a another large province. this province is governed by the brother of this candidate. the person in charge of counting the votes in this province happens to be in charge of this candidate's campaign in this province.

the election still is way to close. it now has been thrown to the country's highest court. a majority of these judges owe their job to this candidates father and his father's former boss.

if this was in a third world country, we would be sending observers. there are too many conflicts of interest for this even to be considered a fair election.

Are these Observers in Ohio?

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two volunteer poll workers at an Ohio voting station told Human Events that they observed van loads of Ohio residents born in Somalia — the state is home to the second-largest Somali population in the United States — being driven to the voting station and guided by Democratic interpreters on the voting process.

www.humanevents.com...

reply to post by riverwild


Yeah, the Federal government still doesn't get they don't trump state's sovereign powers. I think that's the general principle at play here. For those of you who don't get it....that is the point of this exercise. Texas says what is their state law.

Further to that, it appears the State Department is lying (what a friggin' surprise).

First, these are not diplomats, so they don't fall under diplomatic immunity. Second, according to this document from the OSCE there has never been a consensus that grants them legal protection/immunity. The State members never could agree.

www.osce.org...

So I guess the "immunity" issues from Hillary Clinton's ass....which has no legal effect in Texas, I assure you.

reply to post by riverwild


Ironically, it will be the Democrats that need watching, even though ACORN is the organization that pulled this crap to get OSCE in our business.

reply to post by Valhall


Thanks for the link.

I read that they can "in fact" be arrested and held for 48 hours.

Do you know if that's true?

reply to post by riverwild


Texas can arrest and hold for some limited time anyone they consider to have broken the law and no agreement the federal government makes with any international government can stop them.

Hillary can bring her phat ass down to Texas and bail them out, but she can't stop the arrest.

reply to post by Valhall

Hillary can bring her phat ass down to Texas and bail them out, but she can't stop the arrest.

Lmao, thats effing hilarious

reply to post by Valhall


Cool!

I've always heard, "DONT MESS WITH TEXAS"

Who cares? It's just the popular vote.

The popular vote carries NO WEIGHT. When George Bush for example won the Presidency he LOST the popular vote. it was the Electoral vote that got him elected. ( in other words he had a majority of representative votes in certain swing states and the majority of the US Population voted for the other guy, Not Him - Americans collectively did not want him to be the President) The electoral vote is not influenced at all by the popular vote. The popular vote is a sham to busy people with the illusion that they are voting for a President.

As far as Voter ID. I'm all for it. "Disenfranchise minorities" ? You have to be kidding me. If your a legal citizen and can prove it, then you have the right to vote. You have to prove this anyway to the voter registration people to even get a a registration card. All this asks is those who can legally vote present their voter registration card along with that same proof of identification. This will cut down on fraudulent voting by people with phony papers.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


The popular vote is not a sham. The electoral votes of your state are decided by the popular vote within your state. There have only been a couple of instances in the entire history of the U.S. political record that an electorate has betrayed his state's popular vote.

The popular vote AS A WHOLE (i.e. nation-wide) doesn't matter (as you stated in your illustration), but it darned sure matters at the state level. It's the closest this country gets to pure democracy. Don't ever trivialize it.

And I agree 100% on photo IDs for voting.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
Who cares? It's just the popular vote.

It's not about the results of the vote.

It's about the precedent of allowing uninvited foreign interests to intrude into our election process at the state level.