Even if you accept that votes can be taken by anybody and whenever, yes, you need international observer. Otherwise the vote will go the direction of whoever can coerce the locals the hardest. That's not democracy, that's not "the will of the people", that's a sham.
Gallup asked crimeans were asked if they believed it was a sham and 90% said no.
85% agreed with the result.
Russia didnt run that poll. We did. No troops were standing behind the answerers. It agreed entirely with the result of the referendum.
If we hypothesize coercion or fraud in crimea the poll would have disagreed with the results. It didnt.
Coming up with ever thinner pretexts for rejecting the result of this referendum is simply a rejection of democracy - that thing we are supposed to be fighting for.
