The presidential and congressional elections of 2024 were no different were an important election for Democracy Volunteers to observe. The election was highly contentious and saw the return of former US President Trump contesting the election against Vice-President Kamala Harris, following the announcement that President Biden would not be seeking re-election.
In 1990, the United States was the leading signatory to the Copenhagen Agreement which created the OSCE and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which means that election observation is a core aspect of an election. All 50 US states should allow election observation, they do not. We would like to thank those that do allow election observation and who welcomed our observers, but we also feel that a credible observation of the United States of America is dependent on having wider access to the voting process, not just in those states that allow it. Our teams observed in:
- California
- Illinois
- Massachusetts
- Missouri
- Virginia
- Washington
- Washington DC
Our overall impression of those elections we were able to observe, with our small team of 26 observers, was that are extremely well-run and staffed by extremely dedicated election professionals. Our team observed 126 polling stations (some in advance of the election and attended 55 in-person events. We continue to believe that the debate around the quality of US administered elections is one that seems to have little or no credibility, based on the areas we observed. Elections there are extremely well run and meet accepted international standards for being free, open, and fair.
However, like many elections, there are several issues which presented themselves, which we would like to identify as potential areas for action for the electoral authorities in the USA:
Rarely did elections staff record the attendance of election observers in polling stations (only 16% of the time) – recording attendance is essential to ensure that any election observation is legitimate and not involved in election interference.
Our team observed family voting in 21% of polling places (this is where one person ‘assists’, oversees or directs another’s vote – breaching the secret ballot.
Queuing is a significant issue in US elections, in some cases our observers saw very long lines of voters, some who had to wait for over an hour to vote.
Some of our teams received negative attitudes from party members as there was a perception that our role was ‘election interference’ and in one case this was seen to be a threat to our observers.
A final report on the election observation will be issued on March 17th.
