The 2020 election is not rigged, according to Republican experts: Yahoo News Explains
Despite ongoing statements from the White House, Republican voting experts overwhelmingly reject President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election is going to be rigged, according to firsthand accounts given to Yahoo News. Watch as five current and former GOP officials explain why members of both parties can trust elections offices to ensure the integrity of the vote.
Video Transcript
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FRANK LAROSE: In our form of government, the only legitimate authority that any government member has, any elected official has is from the consent of the governed. And the only way we establish the consent of the governed is through a free and fair election that everybody just intuitively knows was an accurate and honest contest.
KIM WYMAN: We have a very decentralized election system that has over 10,000 election officials just like me who are either appointed or elected, and they answer to their voters. They answer to their constituents.
MICHAEL ADAMS: I've got to reassure both Democrats and Republicans that the system is reliable.
KIM WYMAN: And states are working right now to make sure we're balancing access and security so voters can have a safe voting experience and people can have confidence in the results.
TOM RIDGE: Voting isn't a privilege. It's a civic responsibility. And since neither party has a particular electoral advantage because of absentee voting, you shouldn't have to choose between standing in line with a mask on, maybe waiting three, four, five hours, maybe jeopardizing your health, or being able to exercise your civic responsibility, and that's voting on November 3.
BENJAMIN GINSBERG: I've been looking at polling places for 38 years as part of my duties and passion for the Republican Party doing well in elections. We've been looking for fraud, and I know what evidence is available, and there's not anything like enough evidence to make the bold assertion that our elections are rigged and fraudulent.
FRANK LAROSE: The idea that a massive conspiracy could be undertaken that could actually change the result of a governor's race or US senate race or certainly a presidential race is a very far-fetched idea and beyond really the realm of possibility.
MICHAEL ADAMS: You're not going to see widespread fraud in a presidential or a senate or a governor's race. It's just not feasible, and it hasn't been in 70 or 80 years.
KIM WYMAN: We're always controlling all of the environments that people are working in handling ballots either at a polling place or in vote centers or in an absentee-- or excuse me-- in a mail-in environment.
FRANK LAROSE: Everything at the Board of Elections is completely bipartisan. And what it feels like right now in Washington-- Republicans and Democrats can't agree what day of the week it is-- at your county Board of Elections, they really do work very well together.
MICHAEL ADAMS: We've got very specific laws in our state on chain of custody to make sure that the ballots are isolated, that they're not tampered with, that they're not in any way altered. And then those are actually, by law, maintained for seven years in case there's ever any-- even after the term of the people who ran in that election is over, we've still got those to be able to verify.
FRANK LAROSE: One of the reasons why we have to have that paper trail is so that we can do a post-election audit. And we audit every election in every county to make sure that the results came out accurately and honestly.
KIM WYMAN: The best way to explain it to the average person is, imagine having, I don't know, 300 people help you balance your checkbook at the end of the month.
BENJAMIN GINSBERG: And mistakes will happen. Mistakes happen every cycle. They should be rooted out. They should be corrected. But that should not be confused with widespread fraud that yields inaccurate election results.
