By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - The United States is planning to deploy officials to observe next month's election in The Bahamas, the U.S. State Department said, after the Caribbean country's opposition leader called for Washington to do so amid concerns about possible voter fraud.
The move, announced late on Wednesday, follows years of allegations by U.S. President Donald Trump about fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential vote, which he has falsely proclaimed to have won, and other elections,
including most recently the Virginia redistricting referendum.
"The United States regularly supports open, transparent, and competitive democratic electoral processes by deploying embassy election observers accredited by the host government's election officials," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. "U.S. Embassy Nassau plans on doing so in The Bahamas."
The Organization of American States announced on Monday that it will also send a team of observers, keeping with what it has done in previous years.
Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis announced the May 12 election earlier this month. An election was not due to be held until October.
Days after the announcement, Bahamian opposition leader Michael Pintard, who is vying to replace Davis as the country's head of government, wrote to U.S. Ambassador to The Bahamas Herschel Walker asking that the U.S. facilitate credible and independent international observation of the election.
He pointed to concerns about the electoral process, including the accuracy and maintenance of the country's voters' register.
Those concerns, Pintard said, "may undermine public confidence if not addressed through transparent and independent scrutiny."
Harrison Thompson, the country's elections chief, said the Bahamian Parliamentary Registration Department legally reviews the register to make corrections and removals of entries where law and evidence require.
"Where a party identifies a concern, that concern is reviewed. Where a correction is required, that correction is made. This has always been the practice," he said in a statement on Monday.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Bill Berkrot)
