GENEVA, Oct 5 (AFP) - Four years after a series of balloting problems in Florida sowed chaos and confusion in the US presidential race, foreign observers will on Wednesday begin a mission to oversee the elections in the United States.
A first team from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will fly to Washington, with a full deployment of about 100 observers expected at the end of October, mission chief Barbara Haering said.
Haering, a Swiss parliamentarian honed on the OSCE's more traditional beat of ex-Soviet states and nascent democracies, told AFP that the observer mission would not only focus on US "problem states" during polling on November 2.
"We certainly will be in Florida and Ohio, but also some states where everything will be without problems, because our duty is to give a full picture," she said.
The US State Department invited the OSCE -- a 55 nation body covering Europe, the ex-Soviet Union and North America -- to observe the 2004 presidential election earlier this year, but the issue was hotly debated in the US Congress.
"I believe they are quite used to having observers, it's just now it has another dimension because it's a political issue, it's on a political level," she added, steering clear of controversy before the first observers' report on the poll due November 4.
Last week, former US president Jimmy Carter warned that "basic international requirements" for a fair vote were still missing in Florida, where the top election official four years ago also chaired the Republican 2000 campaign in the state.
While Haering pointed out that the United States was a far cry from Kazakhstan, the OSCE's assessment of the forthcoming US presidential elections slated the "weaknesses and vulnerabilities" that were exposed in 2000.
The problems with vote counting in Florida and issues in other states "to some extent affected the level of public confidence in the integrity of the process" in the world's most high-profile democracy, the report released last week said.
It also highlighted the "risk of coercion of voters and unauthorised proxy voting" caused by current absentee ballot rules, while electoral reform legislation speeded through Congress because of the 2000 fiasco has since been delayed.
"Its actual impact on the upcoming presidential elections may fall short of expectations," the OSCE commented.
While the unreliable punch cards used in the last election generated unrest, the organisation also regards newer technology as a potential source of "serious controversy" this time.
New electronic voting equipment in some areas has not been independently checked and in some states it does not provide for a manual recount, it added.
"It's a problem that concerns not only the United States. Becoming involved with electronic voting opens the door to new challenges and risks," Haering commented.
Despite a hint of criticism from the report, differences in the electoral systems and counting methods used within the states leave Haering -- who is used to similar variations in decentralised and federal Switzerland -- unfazed.
"If there's a legal basis, there's no problem. A very close outcome can be fair and free. We will only comment on the procedures," Haering, a Socialist MP, insisted.
Teams of four observers -- a mix of national parliamentarians or observers designated by the OSCE's member countries -- are due to oversee polling in states that will be selected after Haering's initial mission to Washington, Ohio, and St Louis for the televised debate.
"It is a big challenge. Up to now the OSCE has rather been focusing on countries in transition, so this also enhances and fosters the credibility of the organisation -- and of US policy," the observer chief added.