September 22, 2018  Dena Jensen

4 weeks later we are at 28 posts with reasons why Doug’s Got to Go. Today we are visiting the twittisphere where there were some tweets fluttering around early last month questioning the appropriateness of Republican State Senator Doug Ericksen attendeding elections in Cambodia in late July of this year. Not only did he, along with Representative Vincent Buys, attend what The Seattle Times reported were widely regarded as sham elections in Cambodia, Senator Ericksen invited two other Washington lawmakers to attend, as well. 

The White House had declared the elections were neither free nor fair. Meanwhile, the August 4, Seattle Times article, “Questions raised over Washington state lawmakers’ visit to Cambodia to observe elections” by Joseph O’Sullivan, explained the reason Senator Ericksen may have been invited back for the elections after an earlier trip to Cambodia in May 2018:

“’Outside of Donald Trump, having American lawmakers lend credibility to a sham election is the gold standard for dictators all around the world,’ Morgenbesser wrote in an email to The Seattle Times. He has written a book on elections in authoritarian countries in Southeast Asia.

“’This is the basic strategy behind the employment of ‘zombie” election observers — paying groups with formal-sounding names and eminent individuals with reputable associations to say the poll was free and fair,’ he wrote.”

Governor Jay Inslee wrote a letter to the lawmakers to ask serious questions about both the May and July trips to Cambodia. 

Here’s the link to The Seattle Times article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/questions-raised-over-washington-state-lawmakers-visit-to-cambodia-to-observe-elections/