Trump Cheating Claims Roundly Refuted
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – In Miami-Dade and Broward workers are preparing for early voting that starts Monday and will run fourteen days from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
"It's very convenient, and we're encouraging our voters not to wait until election day, take advantage of early voting," said Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections, Christina White.
The early voting is set to begin amid Donald Trump's ongoing rants that the election is set to be stolen.
"The election is rigged!" Trump declared at a rally this week, a claim he also made in Wednesday's debate with Hillary Clinton.
Trump's mantra of electoral cheating prompted the Obama administration to ask the Organization of American States to monitor the election - a request made in June after Trump laid out a litany of uncorroborated claims of voter registration fraud. The OAS is known for monitoring elections in unstable, third world countries. This will be the first time the organization has observed a U.S. election. Former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla will lead the OAS team.
She doesn't expect to find significant issues, as her group monitors the voting in some 15 states, including New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Chinchilla told the Miami Herald, which broke the OAS story, that the U.S. system doesn't lend itself to a stolen election.
"Each state counts its own votes, and there are no unified databases that could (allow) a nationwide conspiracy," Chinchilla said.
The OAS won't monitor Florida, state law forbids it. However, thousands of poll watchers from political parties and special interest groups will be hovering over precincts statewide.
In Broward Friday, Republican Gov. Rick Scott dismissed the cheating concerns of his party's presidential nominee.
"We're working every day to make sure we have an election that everybody can be proud of," Scott said.
Florida's elections boss, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, issued an emphatic statement.
"We have many safeguards in place, and voters should feel confident that their votes will be counted," Detzner said.
And Florida, like the vast majority of states, has a fail-safe backup: A paper trail.
"We audit after every single election," said Miami-Dade's White. "We actually take the paper ballot, do a manual audit, and compare it to the results that the election tabulated."
University of Miami political scientist Joseph Uscinski predicts the election results will make any cheating challenge laughable.
"What the polls are showing right now is that Hillary Clinton is going to win this election in a landslide, and because of that the electoral college votes are going to seem incredibly decisive," Uscinski said.
"It's rigged like you've never seen before!" Trump declared at the rally this week. Whether his claims have any validity or not, the unconventional presidential candidate has apparently assured this will be the most closely examined election in U.S. history.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is sending observers, and even Russia has asked to be allowed to send monitors to watch the November vote.