It’s curiously absent from the news wires, but UN Secretary General Kofi Annan apparently turned down the request from US members of Congress to send international observers to monitor our presidential election.

Which is good news, because it means I don’t have to worry about going to jail on November 2 when I see an observer from Tajikistan trying to make sure I’m following the rules.

But the moonbat clans are not happy about Annan’s decision. Not happy at all.

UNITED NATIONS - Seven American activist groups asked the United Nations on Monday to provide international observers for next month’s presidential election.

A petition delivered to the U.N. Economic and Social Council said that only the U.N. can “give us recourse to international bodies beyond those within our own national and state governments” in case of a repeat of the problems seen in the 2000 election, which President Bush won after a protracted ballot fight in Florida.

Grace Ross of the Economic Human Rights Project, based in Somerville, Mass., said the non-governmental groups decided to seek action from the Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC, after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan turned down a request for international observers from 13 members of Congress, led by Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex. Annan said the U.N. needed an invitation from the U.S. government, not Congress.

Ross claimed that while governments need to go through the U.N. General Assembly, non-governmental organizations could request observers through ECOSOC. If its 54 elected member nations approve, the ECOSOC president could then ask Annan to send observers, she said. The United States would have to grant permission to any observers that the ECOSOC wanted to send. …

But the seven groups say it’s not clear that the European observers will have the force of international law behind them since they are invited guests.

Other organizations signing the petition include the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, based in Philadelphia; the National Welfare Rights Union and the Michigan Welfare Rights Union, based in Detroit; the Independent Progressive Politics Network, headquartered in Bloomfield, N.J.; Seacoast Peace Response, based in Portsmouth, N.H.; and the North Shore Massachusetts chapter of the Alliance for Democracy.