BANGOR, Maine (AP) - Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday he doesn’t think his state will have a “clean election” because identification isn’t required to vote, echoing concerns raised by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump that the election is “rigged.”
LePage told WVOM-FM “people from the cemetery” and some who aren’t citizens will cast votes.
“The media and the Democratic Party want everyone to vote, whether they’re citizens or not. We need to have a photo ID when we go to vote,” he said. Until that happens, “I don’t think the elections in the United States or the state of Maine are legitimate.”
Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, Maine’s top election official, disputed the governor’s contention about voter fraud and called voter identification a “political issue.” He said local voting officials protect people’s right to vote while keeping an eye out for irregularities.
“The accountability procedures we have in place now make any attempt at wide-scale manipulation of an election mathematically impossible,” he said.
The National Association of Secretaries of State also issued a statement on election integrity on Tuesday in response to concerns raised about hacking or cheating.
“State election chiefs want to assure Americans that our process is fairly administered and well-secured, with built-in structural safeguards to ensure honest outcomes and accurate results,” the organization said in a statement.
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