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US says election observers can reach whatever conclusions
27/10/2004 13:30

The United States on Tuesday suggested that it does not care what the international observers talk about the upcoming US presidential election by saying that 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," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

Ereli said the State Department has played a "purely facilitative" role in arranging the observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to come to the United States to observe the Nov. 2 election.

As a member of the OSCE, the US State Department is required to issue the invitation and then put the visitors in touch with local election officials who arrange for their access and logistics of schedule, Ereli said.

"It is not something that we are directly involved in. It is something that takes place at the local level," 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.

The United States has stressed that it is just a very normal practice to invite OSCE observers to observe the US election as these have been observers at the 2002 US congressional elections and the California governor recall election.

There was a vote-counting dispute in the last US presidential elections and at last the US Supreme Court ruled George W. Bush won the election in 2000.



 Xinhua