Preliminary rapport from OSCE The preliminary rapport from OSCE LIMITED ELECTION OBSERVATION MISSION United States of America General Elections 6 November 201 It is mostly general positive things like The 6 November general elections took place in a pluralistic environment and were administered in a professional manner and The election campaigns were vibrant and highly competitive and Overall media is pluralistic and diverse and provided voters with a wide range of information and views on candidates issues and electoral platforms and The overall field of candidates provided voters with a wide degree of choice But also comments on voter eligbility US citizens who are at least 18 years old on election day and residents of a state were eligible to vote Some 4 1 million citizens that are residents of US territories were not eligible to vote while some 600 000 citizens that are residents of the District of Columbia were eligible to vote only for the president An estimated 5 9 million citizens were disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction including some 2 6 million citizens who have served their sentences This is at odds with the principle of universal suffrage and the commitment to ensure proportionality in the restriction of voting rights as enshrined in paragraphs 7 3 and 24 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document And alsom comments on voter registration Voter registration is implemented at state level through an active system A number of states launched initiatives to improve the accuracy of their voter lists Civil society was active in encouraging citizens to register as well as checking the accuracy of voter registers Nevertheless an estimated 50 million eligible citizens were not registered to vote bringing into question the effectiveness of existing measures to ensure that all persons entitled to vote are able to exercise that right Read the whole rapport to learn more Some may be useful in the article