Anne Nyambura from Kenya is among four Eastern Mennonite University students who will monitor election polls in Florida today.
Nyambura will be joining 21 other international observers assembled in the state by the Pax Christi, a Catholic organization devoted to promoting the Gospel imperative of peacemaking.
‘I hope that people in Florida and all over the country will have a better chance to have their vote counted,’ she said Monday.
Nyambura has been trained in spotting potential problems at the polls in counties where the voting process was in dispute four years ago- Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach.
‘While s have occurred, we want to help ensure that every vote and every voter, particularly those most vulnerable to disenfranchisement count,’ said the Pax Christia Web site.
The EMU graduate students who are in the campus Conflict Transformation Program, are from Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
‘In all the African elections, the American presence is always visible,’ said Ferinand Djayerombe Vaweka, a human rights activist and lawyer from the Congo. ‘It seems that nay election in the world would not take place without the U.S.,’ he said.
Vaweka has never voted in the Congo. The last election conducted there was in 1983, when he was 7 years old. But he plans to vote in 2005, when the Congo plans its next election.
Nyambura, who works with refugees, said the international presence is important to protect the democratic process as U.S. observers do in other countries. ‘We want to see that happen her,’ she said.