Cassells gets a taste of US electoral system

Donald Trump was once again the focus of the political world again last week as the US midterm elections took place. And one local man who was there to get a close up view of proceedings was Fianna Fail Senator Shane Cassells.

The Navan man was there as an election monitor on behalf of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and was stationed in Washington DC and Loudoun County in Virginia.

The OSCE monitors elections all across the world and given the denial of the 2020 presidential results by Trump there was heightened scrutiny of these elections.

According to Cassells, the manner in which elections are conducted are very similar to how business is done in Ireland with a few notable exceptions.

“We began the morning at 6.30am opening a polling centre in DC but we headed out to a very rural area in Loudoun County afterwards and it was very similar to being in rural Ireland,” remarked Cassells.

“There was no electronic voting in the rural polling centres and it was all paper ballots.

“What was really interesting was the fact that parties are allowed to have campaigners literally yards from the front door. They were handing out sample ballot papers and as the day wore on the campaigning from the Republican activists became more vocal.

“The Republicans had red gazebos set up at each centre with American flags flying and posters adorning them. In contrast the Democrats simply stood there quietly handing out their ballot papers. Interestingly the Democrats won the seat. The ballot papers also had several very detailed propositions on spending millions of dollars on local projects, which required voters to endorse them.

“There is a huge Hispanic population in the area that we were in and so the polling centres had Spanish translators on site to assist voters. Given the growing diverse population here at home it is certainly an addition we should consider.

“Overall the elections were extremely well run and you had your ID card scanned at the registration desk to obtain your ballot paper. That is something that should definitely happen here at home as our system is completely open to abuse.”

On the night before the vote, Senator Cassells was welcomed as a guest of the White House and the former journalist naturally got a picture in the famous James S Brady Press Briefing Room.