The United States said on Monday that it was not troubled by the presence of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) during the presidential elections.
"Frankly, the presence of OSCE observers we do not find troubling at all," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said at a news briefing.
"To the contrary, this is something that all OSCE members routinely do. So this is no exception," Ereli said.
As a member to the organization, "we have election monitors from the OSCE before. So this is a regular practice consistent with the organization's decisions," he said.
Nonetheless, Ereli stressed that this was the first time the OSCE sent observers to monitor a US presidential election.
"They have sent observers to gubernatorial elections and bi- elections in certain states. They have been invited consistently, but this is the first time there have been observers to a general presidential election," Ereli said.
It is reported that there are about 90 OSCE observers to the US presidential election.
At a news briefing on Oct. 26, Ereli said the observers can come to whatever conclusions they want to.
"People can come, and as long as they observe the proper procedures for visiting the United States, which we all know about, come and look and observe and come to whatever conclusions or judgments they want to come to. It is an open society," Ereli said.
There have been allegations that OSCE observers are denied some type of status in Ohio and Florida, in which both President George W. Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry run neck and neck in opinion polls.
There was a vote-counting dispute in the previous US presidential election and at last the Supreme Court declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 race.