Will this election be rigged? Arizona officials and Trump allies both say no

Donald Trump is claiming this election will be "rigged," doubling down on the notion that American voters should be skeptical of the results of the presidential race once ballots are counted on Nov. 8.

The Republican presidential nominee spent the weekend raising the specter of unlawful activities at the ballot box. On Monday, he chastised leaders of his fractured party on Twitter for denying his claims.

"Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day," Trump tweeted. "Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!"

But in Arizona, traditionally a red state where Republicans dominate statewide and county offices, key public officials say allegations of wide-scale fraud are unsubstantiated. Even Trump's own surrogates say the notion of a rigged election — in Arizona at least — is baseless.

Confidence in Arizona's elections

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who appears frequently on cable news to support Trump's candidacy, said she was confident in the integrity of Arizona’s election system. Prior to her tenure as governor, Brewer served as the secretary of state and oversaw Arizona's elections. In that role, she said “there always are a few hiccups,” but “I don’t think there’s a lot of fraud going on.”

Asked if she thought Arizona’s election would be rigged “at many polling places,” Brewer said, “Absolutely not in Arizona.”

Elections officials also discounted Trump's claims, saying it would be incredibly difficult to rig an election.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan, a Republican, said that unlike the state's voter-registration system, which is online, the system that tabulates votes is not.

"It would be nearly impossible to to hack into something that is not online," she said.

And, she added, the attack this summer on the state's voter registration system was caught, and cyber experts could not find any damage. The FBI has since confirmed that the breach traced back to a suspected Russian hacker.

Helen Purcell, who has overseen dozens of elections in her 27 years as Maricopa County recorder, said it would take a vast conspiracy to rig the upcoming election.

"Think of the collusion you'd have to have to make this happen," said Purcell, who is a Republican. With 724 voting precincts, as well as nearly 1.5 million early ballots, it would take an intricate and widespread effort to skew the vote in Arizona's largest county.

State Treasurer Jeff DeWit, the Trump campaign's chief operating officer, also discounted the idea.

"I do think the meat of Mr. Trump’s comments are not directed at the election officials, but are more directed at the media not being impartial," DeWit said. "In a lot of cases, a lot of the media channels have an extreme bias, which can be perceived as rigging of the election.”

But Trump's allegations, while often aimed at coverage of the race, also include the integrity of the electoral process itself.

The Arizona Advocacy Network, which has has been a watchdog for this year's four elections, said it doesn't have qualms about a rigged result.

"We have really good systems set up," said Sam Pstross, executive director of the progressive-leaning organization. "I have faith in our system. I do believe every vote will be counted."

What Arizona needs, she said at a Monday news conference, is a modernized voting system. But that's a battle for future legislative sessions.

The system's safeguards

Elections officials outlined a number of safeguards intended to ensure a voter's ballot is correctly counted.

For example, before each election, voting machines are put through a "logic and accuracy" test. The tests ensure the ballot marked for a given candidate or issue gets tabulated that way, Purcell said. Sample ballot are filled out ahead of time, fed into the machine and then the results are checked to make sure they reflect what was on the ballot.

"We're doing it for the fourth time this year," Reagan said, of the county-by-county visits her office makes for the required testing.

After the tests, the counties lock up the machines in a secure room until it's time to take them to the polling sites. Nine of the machines in Maricopa County are put to work immediately, scanning voters' early ballots so they're ready for tabulation as soon as the polls close Nov. 8.

Cameras watch the secure sites 24/7, and county election offices provide a link to the surveillance footage on their websites. Maricopa County's site will go live on Oct. 29, after the tests are done.

Other measures, described by Reagan and Purcell in separate interviews:

• When the polls close on Election Day, a card with the voting data is removed from the voting machine and sent to regional collection sites within the county, or directly to county election headquarters, depending on a county's geography.
• In Maricopa County, the accumulated data is sent to elections headquarters through analog phone lines. Purcell said that transmission could theoretically be hacked, but hardly anyone uses analog lines and it would be hard to know when the calls are coming from the dozen collection sites through Maricopa County.
• State law requires a hand count of the votes cast in 2 percent of the precincts. The count is done by representatives of the various political parties, with no one party being allowed to do it on its own.
• In addition, party representatives pull batches of early ballots at random for a hand count.
• Any time a ballot-collection box is moved, such as the boxes where voters drop off early ballots on Election Day, approval is needed first.
• Voters who use touch-screen voting machines get a paper ballot printed out on site to verify their vote.
• The ballots most voters use, which go through an optical-scan machine, are saved and locked in each county treasurer's office. The ballots must remain there for two years in case the election results are challenged.

State leaders aren't worried about vote rigging

Reagan said she's received emails from voters worried about the integrity of elections, especially with recent allegations of Russian hacking. She's concerned the attempted hack on the voter registration system earlier this year, which didn't affect vote tabulation, will color people's views.

"The most important thing is letting people know that the way they vote is the way the tally comes out," she said.

Alexis Tameron, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Trump's encouragement for voters to "go make problems at polling places" is a form of voter intimidation. She conceded it's not vote rigging, per se, calling it a "dog whistle" that might energize Trump supporters to effectively suppress the vote.

Other Trump backers said they're not worried about any vote rigging in Arizona.

In a statement, Gov. Doug Ducey's office echoed the confidence others voiced about the state's election system. "We’ve taken positive steps to address ballot security in recent years, and we’re confident the 11 electoral votes in Arizona will go to the candidate who wins the most votes here," the governor's spokesman Daniel Scarpinato stated.

Robert Graham, chairman of the state Arizona Republican Party for the last three years, said he was confident in the state’s ability to properly carry out elections.

“I can speak for our elections here in Arizona, since I’ve been chairman, and I do not feel that the polling places are rigged," he said.

Brewer said she's aware of other states where there have been some problems, but she doesn't see it in Arizona.

"We’ll just wait and see how it plays out," she said. "We have to have faith in our electoral system or we don’t have a country.”

Reach the reporters at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com and follow them on Twitter @yvonnewingett and @maryjpitzl.