Int’l Observers Blocked From Polls

Even people from other countries encountered trouble at the polls Tuesday. A group of international electoral observers were blocked from polls in nine states—Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas—after media reports falsely tied them to the United Nations and accused them of having plans to interfere in the election. Some states threatened the observers, who belonged to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, a division of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and said they were here to review several benchmarks of democratic elections.