MIAMI — If they can get in the door, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will be keeping an outsider's eye on the U.S. voting process Tuesday
For the first time, machinery created at the prompting of the U.S. government to foster democratic elections throughout the former Soviet bloc will help assess how freely and fairly America chooses its own chief executive. At least 75 election monitors from the OSCE, an intergovernmental organization founded to help bridge the East-West divide during the Cold War, will be stationed in precincts from coast to coast to observe and deliver an independent evaluation of how America votes.
Under its commitments as an OSCE member, the United States is required to invite the scrutiny. What observers will be able to see, though, is unclear.
Konrad Olszewski has flown to Florida as part of the international team, but the election advisor from Poland said Saturday that he might not be able to get very close to the ballot box.
Olszewski and a Canadian observer were courteously received the previous day by Florida Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood, a Republican, but told that under the laws of the state, poll watchers must be registered voters in the county where they wish to observe the voting and must submit written applications in advance, said Alia Faraj, Hood's spokeswoman.
Olszewski said he came to his meeting with Hood in Tallahassee bearing documents from the U.S. State Department attesting to his status, but that made no difference as far as Florida law and state officials were concerned.
"The secretary of state welcomed us but said she really had no authority to give us access [to the polls] on election day," said Olszewski, a former journalist with the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
As of Saturday afternoon, Olszewski was in Miami, meeting with Miami-Dade County election officials and becoming increasingly resigned to not being able to enter polling places Tuesday.
"I'm not very optimistic at the moment," he said. He was being allowed to observe early voting and the opening of mail-in absentee ballots in Miami. He had also been told that he could be present for the tallying of results.
Urdur Gunnarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the OSCE mission, said problems similar to what Olszewski encountered had cropped up in numerous locales because the United States, unlike many countries, has a decentralized electoral system.
