The attempt by the Europeans to insert observers into the American presidential election is being met with yet another warning — this one, according to a story that went up on the Drudge Report this afternoon, from Iowa. The Hawkeye State has joined Texas in threatening to arrest the European observers if they get closer to the polling places than state law allows. Your editor is product enough of the American civil rights movement not to dismiss out of hand the instinct that our presidential elections might merit observation. The Jim Crow era saw enough disenfranchisement of African Americans voters to serve as a permanent warning.

But your editor has had enough time in grade as a foreign correspondent to doubt the bona fides of the OSCE. It is a Cold War institution that, if it had any merit, was in advancing the cause of democracy against the Soviet empire. It would have been prudent to have dismantled the OSCE once the Cold War was over. As recently as 2010 it was chaired by Kazakhstan, whose “most significant human rights problems,” according to our own State Department, includes “severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; and lack of an independent judiciary and due process, especially in dealing with pervasive corruption and law enforcement and judicial abuse.”

The whole State Department human rights report can be read online ad nauseum. What in the world is Secretary of State Clinton doing siding with the OSCE against the people of Texas and Iowa? It is being said in the OSCE’s defense that it sent observers to our recent elections without incident. To which we would say it’s nice to see the states starting to call a stop to these intrusions. The Europeans are clearly in President Obama’s corner in these elections. The percentage of Russians supporting Mr. Obama is characterized by the Russian news channel RT as “overwhelming.” A British pollster, according to Reuters, has just reported that more than 90% of northern Europeans would vote for Mr. Obama were they were able to vote here next week.

Well, Iowans are a lot of things, but naive isn’t one of them. Politico is quoting Iowa’s state secretary, Matt Schultz, as saying that he explained to OSCE representatives last week that they “are not permitted at the polls” in Iowa. Mr. Schultz characterized Iowa law as being “very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.” That in and of itself is a mark of honest elections. It is hard enough work keeping elections honest without a lot of meddling from an organization riddled with authoritarian governments and representing, if it “represents” anyone, populations who are tilting in favor of the incumbent in the election they would supposedly be observing.