Republican Angst Over European Election Monitors

LONDON - American voters have been alerted to be on the lookout for sinister strangers lurking near polling places next Tuesday. They may be part of a crack team sent from Europe to snoop on the election.

The authorities in Texas and Iowa have warned that the foreigners could be arrested on sight if they approach a polling place, and a senior Georgia official has said that anyone who sees something improper going on should report it immediately.

The prospect of outsiders - from Europe of all places - attempting to interfere in the democratic process sounds like the stuff of conservative American nightmares.

It turns out, however, that European observers have been present at U.S. national elections for a decade, since President George W. Bush first invited them in.

This year's visitors are members of an election monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 56-nation grouping of which the United States is a member.

The international team, led by a Dutch diplomat, has been on the ground since early October. The organization's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, based in Warsaw, monitors elections worldwide to ensure they are fair. As in previous election years, it has received an official invitation from the United States.

Most U.S. officials have taken a relaxed attitude to the Europeans' presence. A pair of observers looked in on Kansas last month but was not expected back.

“I looked at it as some Europeans that were curious at how we succeed in doing what we do, by holding free and open elections,” Bruce Newby, the Wyandotte county election commissioner, said.

Some officials have been less understanding.

Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, wrote to Daan Everts, head of the 57-member observer mission, to warn him that “the O.S.C.E.'s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for O.S.C.E.'s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance.”

Conservatives are concerned that the Europeans have been in touch with civil rights groups, which have told the monitors of a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans through a campaign of voter suppression in what is expected to be a very close election.

Greta Van Susteren of the right-leaning Fox News complained: “The election is none of their business. We ought to be able to police our own election.”

That may have reflected a natural resistance to seeing the United States being put under the spotlight by an organization that includes the likes of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

The controversy over the O.S.C.E. presence might nevertheless have been heightened this year by a tone of Europe-bashing in the campaign of Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger.

In his latest swipe at the old Continent, Mr. Romney was quoted as telling a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, this week:

If you're an entrepreneur and you're thinking of starting up a business, you need to ask yourself: Is America on the same road as Greece? Are we on the path to an economic crisis like that we're seeing in Europe, in Italy and Spain?

It cannot have helped the Republican mood that opinion polls consistently show Europeans would overwhelmingly choose President Obama if they had the vote. (My colleague Mark McDonald wrote on Rendezvous last week that the feeling is global.)

Bruce Walker, a commentator for The American Thinker, gave a conservative view of the Continent in a column on Friday. “Our next president will have a very important task: dealing with the looming disaster which is Europe,” he wrote.

Portraying a region afflicted by debt, separatism and Muslim immigration, he warned: “The potential disaster of a complete meltdown of Europe will affec t our nation in ways that ought to alarm all Americans.”