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Election officials respond to concerns over 'rigged' elections

Posted at 8:16 PM, Oct 17, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-17 20:54:25-04

With a lot focus put on the validity of the 2016 Election results, we turned to the people in charge of the entire process for answers.
 
WPTV spoke with two supervisor of elections who explained why there should be no concerns about the election being "rigged" or skewed by voter fraud.
 
Tweets like this saying, “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary- but also at many polling places- SAD,” from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have some questioning the validity of this year’s presidential election.
 
“I’m really kind of impatient with the people out there saying the elections going to be rigged,” said Susan Bucher, Palm Beach County’s Supervisor of Elections.

Bucher is hoping to put those fears to rest, especially a week before early voting here in Florida.

“With paper ballots it’s kind of infallible,” explained Bucher.

First and foremost, Bucher says the voting machines and systems are not attached to the internet, which should any address hacking fears.

As for accuracy, she says the machines have already been tested and that process is open to the public. Then they have ways to verify the results.
 
“I think it’s really a disservice to the hardworking supervisors throughout the country. We’re working as hard as we can day, night, Saturday, Sunday. I can guarantee here in Palm Beach County we have audits in place that our elections will be clean and verifiable,” said Bucher.

Martin County Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis also dismissed the possibility of a rigged election.

“The fact that we have paper ballots, if we have to go back and recount, we have that ballot the we can always run through the high speed tabulators,” said Davis.

While there are still many fears out there, St. Lucie County voter Jerry Bryan he says he will still accept the outcome of this election even if it’s not what he had hoped for.

“Unless they find something wrong with it, what choice do we have,” said Bryan.

Meanwhile, election offices across our five county viewing area are continuing with poll worker training and machine testing.

Tuesday is the last day to register to vote and early voting begins next Monday.