UN not to send observers for US election

The United Nations will not dispatch observers to monitor the US presidential election as requested earlier by some US Democratic lawmakers, a UN spokesperson said on Thursday.

At the daily briefing, spokesperson Marie Okabe said the world body could not take action at the request of a nation's legislative branch.

"The policy and practice is that the United nations responds to requests made by national governments and not the legislative branch," she said.

She added that observation missions must also be approved by the 191-nation UN General Assembly.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, 13 Democrats in the US House of Representatives requested the UN to send a group of observers to safeguard the rights of American voters in the Nov. 2 presidential poll.

They expressed fears that there could be a repeat of the disputed vote in the state of Florida four years ago.

During the 2000 election, vote recounts were conducted in some Florida counties due to suspected tallying errors. The recount process was terminated by the US Supreme Court. Republican candidate George W. Bush won the state by a small margin.