The Carter Center has sent missions to monitor elections in such far-flung places as Bolivia and Sudan.
This time, however, the Atlanta-based center will monitor an election closer to home.
The Carter Center, at the invitation of the Cherokee Nation Election Commission, will send a small observation mission to Oklahoma for the Sept. 24 special election for principal chief.
This is the second time the Carter Center has monitored an election on U.S. soil. In 1999, it also observed the elections in the Cherokee Nation.
Observers will interview the election commission, candidates and others to assess the electoral process. They will also observe early voting, election-day polling and tabulation.
The special election was ordered by the Cherokee Supreme Court after it could not determine the outcome of a June election that pitted incumbent Chad Smith against councilman Bill John Baker.
Avery Davis-Roberts, assistant director of the Carter Center’s Democracy Program, said the center was invited to monitor the process after that election.
The Carter Center hope to reassure voters "that there will be an impartial assessment of the process and, at the end, there will be greater transparency," she said.
She said it was not directly related to another controversial issue between the nation and the descendants of slaves, called freedmen.
"It's a coincidence in many ways," she said.
Members voted in 2007 to amend the Cherokee Nation Constitution to remove freedmen from the rolls. In order to be considered a citizen, a person must be able to trace his lineage to one Indian ancestor listed on the Cherokee Nation's Dawes Rolls, according to the Cherokee Nation website. The Cherokee Supreme Court recently upheld the results that also, in effect, barred freedmen from voting in the September election. The descendants of former slaves have asked a judge to restore their right to vote as well as other benefits.
Davis-Roberts said the center may address the freedmen issue in its final report. "At the moment we're just watching and waiting to see what happens with the lawsuit making is way through the federal courts."
About the Author
