When the UK-based Independent reported last week that the Carter Center was launching its first-ever United States election initiative, the announcement might have come as a surprise to many. The Carter Center, which was founded by former US president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn 38 years ago, promotes peace, human rights, and democracy and has reportedly monitored more than 110 elections in the last 30 years, but never in the US. One salient reason for this is the cognisance that any interest it showed in the country’s elections opened it to accusations of partisanship, particularly if a Democrat won, given that its founder is a member of the Demo-cratic Party.
The Carter Center has a democracy programme, which, according to information on its website, works to “support democratic elections and strengthen participatory democracy, consistent with human rights. The overarching objective is to enhance democratic governance and increase effective political participation for all, especially groups that have been historically disadvantaged or that face political, cultural, or socioeconomic barriers. This includes women, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, youth, elderly people, and other marginalized groups.”
Its role in many free and fair elections held around the world, indicate that the Carter Center has been successfully meeting the objectives noted above. Yet it had been forced to ignore many of these same threats that have existed in the US for several years and are worsening with every election. One of the largest is disenfranchisement of voters through misinformation about polling places, not having enough polling places in population dense communities, or simply not allowing people to vote. This has regularly occurred and has been reported on, the most recent instance being this year’s blatant threat to mail-in votes, which are particularly crucial at this point in time. But US elections continue to be unmonitored by any neutral or nonpartisan organisation.
So why does the Carter Center now intend to have a dog in this fight? Director of its democracy programme David Carroll was quoted as telling the Independent that the decision was taken because of the view, “that the state of democracy in the US has been eroding.” Mr Carroll might actually be putting it very mildly. The gradual crumbling of democracy in the US has gone unchecked for many years owing in part to its convoluted electoral system, which lends itself to manipulation making the one person, one vote principle something of a misnomer.
A case in point is the 2000 election in which Mr George W Bush, a Republican, lost the popular vote, but was named president because he defeated Democratic opponent Mr Al Gore in the electoral college. It should be noted here that the difference between the two in the popular vote was just close to 500,000, and 5 in the electoral college. In more recent memory of course is the 2016 election in which Mr Donald Trump, running on the Republi-can ticket, lost the popular vote to Mrs Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, by in excess of 2 million votes, but won the presidency based on his 304 electoral college votes to her 227.
It will be recalled that Mr Trump had pronounced the elections would be rigged weeks before the November 8, poll date spreading some amount of fear among voters. He had doubled down on those accusations afterwards, to deflect finger-pointing claims that Russian interference had helped secure his win. Investigations later revealed that major shenanigans online, particularly on social media, had tipped the scales in his favour. This prompted some amount of push back and resulted in social media platforms promising to endeavour to be more careful with patrolling usage. Nevertheless, social media continues to pose a threat to democracy, and not just in the US. Its use to disseminate disinformation, which can and has influenced the outcome of elections remains unchecked.
The latest ploy in the US in this regard is the online, right-wing, conspiracy-theory group QAnon, which alleges that several top Democrats and celebrities are pedophiles, satanic worshippers and cannibals and that President Trump is the sole anointed hope to stop them. A fringe group that appears to have engendered acts of radicalism, QAnon seems headed for mainstream after what can only be described as an endorsement by President Trump. When questioned about QAnon at a press briefing about a week ago, President Trump’s response was “Well, I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. I have heard it is gaining in popularity. I’ve heard these are people that love our country…”
These are among the reasons why the state of democracy in the US can no longer be referred to eroding. Its status is a rip-roaring rock fall that threatens to smash the very tenets upon which the country was built. Only head-standing sand dwellers would fail to see it for exactly what it is.
Up to when Mr Carroll spoke to the Independent, the Carter Center had not yet decided what its involvement in the US elections would look like, although he was positive that it would not be monitoring of polling. What will be infinitely more interesting is the Center’s report and recommendations at the end of the elections and how the administration treats with them.
