Trump Voter Fraud Charge Not Scaring Local Election Officials
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Donald Trump today repeated his belief that voter fraud could steal the 2016 election.
But local election officials told CBS 2 Political Reporter Derrick Blakley, it's Trumpls charges that are fraudulent.
In Colorado, Trump's now familiar charge is that urban voter fraud could cost him the White House
"Take a look at Chicago, take a look at St. Louis. Take a look at some of these cities where you see things happening that are horrendous and if you talk about them, they say bad things about you, they call you a racist," Trump said on the campaign trail.
But Chicago election officials say there's no evidence of widespread fraud.
Over the last decade, in various elections, there's been 9 million votes cast, "...and out of all those millions of votes, we've had just ten matters referred to the Cook County States Attorneys Office, Chicago Board of Elections Commission's Marisel Hernandez says.
However, officials admit Chicago still suffers from the old vote early, vote often reputation.
"I first ran for office in Cook County. I know what people can do," Cook County Clerk David Orr says. "So I never will take the threat of fraud lightly."
But election officals say the advent of electronic voting with paper backup has drastically reduced avenues for stealing votes. There's more cross-checking voter lists other agencies, even other states.
And bi-partisan monitors oversee the process.
"When voters come in, we have republican and democratic judges here, watching this count. When they start opening mail ballots, we have people there. When its early voting, we have republicans and democrats watching everything," Orr says.
Orr says his office has been consulting with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security about the risk of computer hackers compromising the voting process.
But the highest risk for fraud he sees is with mail-in ballots, where someone else could possibly vote in place of the person for whom the ballot is intended.
Still, neither city nor county officials see voter fraud as being the kind of threat that could tilt an election.
