WASHINGTON — The North Carolina Board of Elections has denied international observers access to polling sites on Election Day, a decision that caught members of the mission by surprise as they prepared to arrive in the state.
North Carolina had allowed election observers to monitor their polling sites in the past, but decided against it this year, forcing the international team to cancel its visit at the last minute.
Nat Perry, spokesman for the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an international organization that monitors the fairness of elections worldwide, said the group considers North Carolina's decision a "breach of commitment" and expects the episode to feature in its upcoming report on the Nov. 3 election in the battleground state.
"This is a new development where the North Carolina authorities have essentially restricted access when access was previously available," said Alex Johnson, chief of staff of the Helsinki Commission, the U.S. agency responsible for implementing U.S. commitments to the OSCE.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the state's board of elections, wrote to the group denying their request for access by citing a law that only North Carolinians can be present in polling places — a law that has not been cited during previous observation missions.
"By North Carolina law, only individuals in the act of voting, county or North Carolina election officials, or observers appointed timely by the political parties are allowed inside the voting sites," Bell wrote in a letter dated Oct. 22 and obtained by McClatchy. "Therefore OSCE officials will not be allowed to observe polling stations in our state."
Perry said the state's decision to cite the law surprised them, coming just two years after a similar mission in North Carolina to observe the midterm elections there.
"We were all surprised, because we have observed in North Carolina several times in the past, and it hasn't been a problem — and the law was never interpreted in the way that they're interpreting it now," Perry said.
The North Carolina observer team is now expected to remain in Washington, D.C., Perry added.
Bell also cited restrictions on Board of Elections staff due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has forced the board to take "precautions to ensure the safety and health of our board members and staff."
"We sincerely hope that after this pandemic we can find ways to share our experiences and practices in North Carolina with our colleagues from around the world, but unfortunately we cannot make this accommodation at this time," Bell wrote.
This is the ninth year that international poll observers from the OSCE have been invited to the United States to assess and monitor how well the election system is functioning in respecting fundamental individual freedoms, and to make recommendations for improvements for future elections.
The OSCE has long-term observers, who monitor the course of an election cycle over several weeks, including any last-minute changes in the law that might affect election results, as well as elected members from its parliamentary assembly who observe polling places on Election Day.
While the short-term observers have been denied access, the long-term observers from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights are operating in the state.
"We believe that the time and resources of state and county election officials are better spent responding to the needs of North Carolina voters, political parties and local media at this time," Patrick Gannon, public information director at the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in an email.
While 500 poll observers were expected to arrive in the United States this year, making it the largest election observation mission since the organization's first operation in 2002, only 30 have been deployed due to health concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and travel restrictions. The OSCE sent 49 observers for the 2018 midterm elections and more than 400 for the 2016 presidential election.
In a May assessment, the organization found that this year's elections "will be the most challenging in recent decades" due to the increase of the use of vote-by-mail ballots and other challenges that have only been enhanced by the pandemic.
"It's been a huge challenge for our election observation work. We haven't changed anything about our methodology, but we've worked hard to adapt to the current circumstances," said Katya Andrusz, spokeswoman for the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. "I wouldn't want to say this is exactly the same business as usual."
