Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman is rejecting Donald Trump’s insistence the U.S. election has been “rigged,” calling the GOP nominee’s claims ludicrous and distressing. Wyman — the lone statewide elected Republican on the West Coast — said in an interview Monday “it’s irresponsible for a candidate to be casting doubt on the election process and just making these sweeping statements that the election is rigged already and that the outcome is predetermined.” Wyman said one of the strengths of the American elections system is its decentralization, with votes counted by some 9,000 county auditors and other elections administrators. “You would have to have a conspiracy of such grand scale that I think we would have much bigger problems than whether this election is rigged,” she said.
Collapsing in the polls after multiple women accused him of unwanted groping, Trump has in recent days sought to question the legitimacy of the fall election. Trump tweeted on Sunday that the election was being rigged in favor of Democrat Hillary Clinton by “dishonest” media and “also at many polling places.” On Monday, he claimed “large scale voter fraud” and attacked Republican leaders who deny it as “so naive.”
The nonpartisan fact-checking organization PolitiFact rated Trump’s claims of large-scale voter fraud as a “Pants-on-Fire” falsehood. While ineligible voters such as felons or noncitizens do cast votes, studies have shown the problem is not widespread.
Wyman called Trump’s efforts to undermine the legitimacy of election results “a little scary to me,” saying her office has received calls and emails from Trump supporters worried about voter fraud.
Full Article: WA’s Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman calls Trump rigged-election claim ‘irresponsible’ | The Seattle Times.