ELECTION 2016 - The Lie

"Is there large-scale voter fraud in the U.S.?  In a word, No." PBS NewsHour 10/17/2016

COMMENT:  The only people TRYING to rig elections are Republicans and their fascist leader Donald Trump.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Donald Trump continues to speculate that the election is rigged against him, and many supporters agree:  Only one-third of Republicans have great confidence that their votes will be counted fairly.  Judy Woodruff talks to Republican strategist Al Cardenas and Richard Hasen from the University of California, Irvine about the chances of large-scale voter fraud and the potential for voter intimidation.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  As we heard earlier, Donald Trump continues to claim that the presidential election process is rigged against him.  That claim seems to be resonating with some voters.  Just one-third of Republicans say they have a great deal of confidence that their votes will be counted fairly this election.  That's according to a recent Associated Press poll.

For more on all this, we are joined by Richard Hasen.  He's professor of law at the University of California, Irvine.  He's author of the Election Law Blog.  And Al Cardenas is a Republican strategist.  He served as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida during the presidential recount in 2000.

And we welcome both of you to the NewsHour.

Al Cardenas, to you first.

Donald Trump is stepping up these warnings.  He tweeted just a short time ago — and I'm quoting — he said:  “Of course there's large-scale voter fraud happening on and before Election Day.”  He asked, he said, “Why do Republican leaders deny what's going on?  It's so naive.”

Is there large-scale voter fraud happening in this country?

AL CARDENAS, Republican Strategist:  Oh my, there isn't, hasn't been.  And our country has been spending 200-plus years to get it just right.

The checks and balances in the electoral process is amazing.  I know our guest will know more about it than I do.  But we have state elected — state officials elected or appointed who are in charge of the overall state process.  And every local government, counties or municipalities, have supervisor elections who are elected or appointed.

And then you have local canvassing boards made up oftentimes of judges.  And they're part of this whole processes.  Everyone who works in these voting precincts get trained, gets warned about violating the laws, gets warned about the criminal implications of violating the law.

We have a whole process in America.  And in 200-some years, we have never, ever had a national election that's been impacted by fraud, not even close.  Even in Florida, where I served as chairman in the famous recount, it — was that an issue.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Richard Hasen, what is your take on this?  What is the likelihood that this process could be rigged, as Donald Trump charges?

RICK HASEN, University of California, Irvine:  If you're talking about rigging the way that Donald Trump is talking about rigging, I would say the chances are basically none.  It's impossible.

He's talking about people going into the polling place and voting five or 10 or 15 times.  He said this would happen in certain areas of Pennsylvania.  It seems to be, from what his surrogate Rudy Giuliani said, in minority areas, that Democrats are going to steal the votes by impersonating other people.

That's just now how — in the rare times when voter fraud occur, that's just not how elections are stolen in this country, and not on the kind of scale that could affect a presidential election, which would the cooperation of tens of thousands of people to try to commit voter fraud under the noses of election officials and party officials who are watching the whole process.