International observers see no evidence of rigged election – but they’ll watch anyway | McClatchy Washington Bureau

The team of international election experts invited to keep an eye on the U.S. election has seen not any evidence of a potential “rigged” outcome, according to their director.

Donald Trump hasn’t backed off his allegations of a “rigged election” and indicated in last Wednesday’s debate that he might not accept the results of the Nov. 8 vote.

The international observers from the Organization of American States have been monitoring the campaign and media reports since the OAS accepted Secretary of State John Kerry’s invitation this summer to observe the 2016 election – the first time the hemispheric organization has observed a U.S. election.

Gerardo de Icaza, the director of the OAS’s department of electoral cooperation and observation, said they’d looked into some of the reported allegations and had not seen any substantial problems. He called the allegations general and lacking in specificity, which make them more difficult to investigate.

“If the basis of the argument is that there is intent to falsify results, we have not seen any evidence at all of that,” De Icaza said. “What does ‘rig’ mean? Does it mean that the electoral system benefits one campaign over the other? We also have not seen any of that.”

For months, Trump has suggested that the national election would be rigged against him. Democrats and Republicans have also fought over voter ID laws, which require citizens to present some kind of identification at the polls. Supporters say the requirements protect against fraud, but civil rights groups say they discriminate against low-income and minority voters, and some of the restrictions have been struck down by courts.

Trump also has charged that people are voting multiple times. He says immigrants who are in the United States illegally are voting. And he has said there are millions of people registered to vote who shouldn’t be registered. His campaign has cited a 2012 Pew Center study that estimated about 24 million voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are inaccurate.

“Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day,” Trump tweeted last week. “Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!”

He’s not alone in his thinking. Only only about 4 in 10 Americans have a high degree of confidence that the votes in the 2016 presidential election will be counted correctly, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But studies show rigging an election is nearly impossible to do.

A Loyola Law School professor found only 31 known cases of impersonation fraud out of 1 billion votes in all American elections from 2000 to 2014.

“Perhaps because these stories are dramatic, voter fraud makes a popular scapegoat,” wrote the authors of a 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School that found fraud almost nonexistent. “In the aftermath of a close election, losing candidates often are quick to blame voter fraud for the results.”

Trump has not gotten much support from his party. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a statement that he was “fully confident” in the nation’s elections systems.

The OAS has picked 13 states – including California, Kansas, Georgia and Pennsylvania – and the District of Columbia where some 40 observers will review the electoral process, electoral organization and technology, campaign finance and political participation.

This week, the OAS mission chief, former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, will travel to Georgia. OAS leaders also will meet with the campaigns, where they’ll be able to gather more feedback on the process and any specific allegations.

De Icaza emphasized that the OAS is simply observing the election and has no authority to intervene. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t investigate a report of fraud or other problem. It also would report the allegation to the proper federal and local election authorities. But De Icaza said they were not seeing any indication of a significant problem.

De Icaza described the U.S. electoral process as a “strong system” with multiple processes that can resolve problems. He said the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns had had equal access to the media. They’ve both had equal opportunities to deploy their campaigns in states throughout the country.

“You have a system that is very transparent, that is very public, that is organized by your friends and neighbors, not by an electoral administration that can be linked to government, for instance,” he said. “You don’t have that.”