Dennis Hertel: “Thank you, Jim, for giving me the opportunity to report on the International Election Monitors Institute and other…”

“Thank you, Jim, for giving me the opportunity to report on the International Election Monitors Institute and other advances our association has made in this field. The institute has created a board of directors made up of former legislators from the United States, Canada and Europe. I am pleased to see so many of them with us here today from Canada and Europe. I especially want to thank Doug Rowland and his wife Helen for their great leadership in our efforts. We work together to train our former colleagues in accepted election observation conduct, particularly the Code of Conduct created by the United Nations, and we collaborate with several renowned organizations in this field to send our members on election monitoring missions across the globe. We have an invitation from OSCE to add our trained observers to their missions, primarily in eastern Europe. In addition, we are coordinating with the OAS to have former legislators play a role in their delegations. Thanks to the Canadian International Development Agency, we now have a 5-year grant to create a training course and other initial programs to get the institution off the ground, to begin this very month.”