Officials fight Donald Trump on claims that vote was rigged

Republican and election officials from both parties,on Sunday reacted on the claims by Donald J. Trump that the election was rigged against him.

“The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary — but also at many polling places — SAD,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

Mr. Trumps claims was considered a vivid illustration of how he plans to shatter American political norms through conspiracy between the news media and the Democratic Party since he had no evidence to support his claim.

According to reports, Mr. Trump’s words, though, appear to be having an effect on his supporters, are setting off deep concern among civil rights groups. According to an Associated Press poll last month, only one-third of Republicans said they had a great deal of confidence their votes would be counted fairly. Meanwhile, election officials are worried that Mr. Trump’s continued pressing of the issue could dampen or cause his supporters to deny the legitimacy of the results if he loses.

Jon A. Husted, the secretary of state of Ohio, while reacting to this also said:

“We have made it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” we are going to run a good, clean election in Ohio, like we always do. He further noted that American elections are, unlike like those in many democracies, largely decentralized, rendering the possibility of large-scale fraud extremely unlikely since the balloting in many of the hardest-fought states will be overseen by Republican officials who would be highly unlikely to consent to helping Mrs. Clinton rig the vote.

Chris Ashby, a Republican election lawyer, who said Mr. Trump’s attacks on the electoral process were unprecedented and risked causing a fiasco also, said that Mr. Trump was “destabilizing” the election by encouraging his supporters to deputize themselves as amateur poll monitors, outside the bounds of the law, adding that this is going to create a disturbance in polling places across the country, which is very, very dangerous.