OVSE stuurt waarnemers naar Amerikaanse verkiezingen (en)

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will monitor the US election on 2 November. It will be the first time such a team has been present for a US presidential election.

Thirteen Democratic members of the House of Representatives had requested UN monitors for this year's presidential elections in an effort to avoid possible voting irregularities that plagued the 2000 election, the closest in history.

In a letter to the 13 Democrats, Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kelly did not mention their request for UN observers but said the United States had already invited the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe the 2004 presidential elections.

The OSCE, based in Vienna, Austria, has sent more than 10,000 personnel to monitor more than 150 elections and referenda in more than 30 countries during the past decade, spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir told CNN.

She also said the observer team would go to the US in September to plan how to monitor the election, including how many observers to send and where to deploy them.

The OSCE is the largest regional security organisation in the world with 55 participating States from Europe, Central Asia and North America.

OSCE members, including the United States, agreed in 1990 in Copenhagen to allow fellow members to observe elections in one another's countries.

In November 2002, the organisation sent 10 observers on a week-long mission to monitor the US midterm elections and also sent observers to monitor the California election last year.