Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, taking offense with Donald Trump's insistence that the nation's elections are rigged, said Monday he'd like to assure the GOP nominee that the process in his state will run honestly.
"I am in charge of elections in Ohio, and they're not going to be rigged," Husted told CNN's Carol Costello, noting that he understands the frustrations that Americans have with their institutions, which "have let them down over the course of the last 30 years."
Times are tough for some, while others have gotten "very wealthy," the Ohio Republican continued, but "our institutions like our election system is one of the bedrocks of American democracy. We should not question it, or the legitimacy of it."
In Ohio, state leaders make it "easy to vote, and hard to cheat," Husted said, and Democrats and Republicans work together in the bipartisan system.
"They work that way in our election system to make sure that the integrity of our election system is upheld, and that people feel good about the process of voting," said Husted.
Trump's comments about the election being rigged, Husted said are "irresponsible," and if people like the nominee know there are instances of election fraud, they should tell him rather than posting about it on Twitter.
In Ohio, there are safeguards built into the election system governing everything from identification rules to removing deceased voters from the rolls, and the state has the ability to make sure just one vote per person is cast and counted, and when there has been fraudulent behavior, it is discovered.
"We had a lady in the last presidential election who voted five times," he said. "She was caught [and] she went to prison for it. It's not worth committing a fifth-degree felony to cast an extra vote. Most people understand that."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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