If you think the election is rigged will you accept the results on november 8 . Supporters, 202 7488001. Hillary clinton supporters, 202 7488000. Supporters, 202 7488002. If you are undecided, 202 7488003. A very good wednesday morning to you on the day of the final president ial debate. We are talking about your confidence in the integrity of the u. S. Elections this morning on the washington journal. Some of the comments donald trump has made in recent days. Here is a tweet. The election is absolutely being rigged by dishonest and distorted media pushing crooked hillary but also at many polling places. Said of course there is largescale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Colorado. He was in heres a bit of what he had to say. They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booth where so many cities are correct. And voter fraud is all too common. They criticize us for saying that. And we have even republicans, that is such a terrible thing to say. Take a look at philadelphia. Take a look at chicago. Where you see things happening that are her and this horrendous. They say bad things about you. They call you a racist. Nobody will do more for the African American citizens of this country and donald trump. Nobody. Nobody will do more for the Latino Community and donald trump. Yesterday at the white house at that joint press conference president obama was asked about Donald Trumps comments about rigged elections. Heres a bit of what he had to say. There is no serious person out there who would suggest evenow that you could rigged americas elections. In part because they are so decentralized. And the numbers of votes involved. Theres no evidence that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time. Advise mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes. Votes than itmost be my expectation of hillary to offer a gracious concession speech and pledged to work with him in order to make peopleat the american benefit from an effective government. It would be my job to welcome mr. Trump regardless of what he has said about me or my differences on him and my opinions and escort him to the capital in which there would be a peaceful transfer of power. Thats what americans do. Thats why america is already great. One way of weakening america and making it less great is if you start betraying those basic american traditions that have and have helped to hold together this democracy for well over two centuries. The headline in usa today, voting officials insist no fraud is the headline. One of those voting officials is the connecticut secretary of state denise merrill. She joins us on the phone now. She the democratic secretary of state in connecticut and president of the National Association of secretaries of state. Thank you for joining us. What do you say to voters who are worried about their confidence in their vote . Yes, good morning. I agree entirely with president obama. This is a completely unsubstantiated claim that somehow our election will be rigged. The wordven sure what rigged means. Sort of implies that local Election Officials or somebody at a very local level would tamper with the Voting Machines. People should understand there is no voting machine in america that is connect to the internet, first of all. That tells you that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to muster a conspiracy on a level that would affect a president ial election. Host what is the role of secretaries of state . Is one good thing that has come out of all of this. Maybe we will all learn more about how our elections really do work. In most states the secretary of electionthe chief official. We dont actually operate the election system. We oversee it and try to maintain the laws in each state that govern elections. Its heavily regulated and each state is a little bit different. There are federal overarching requirements for the actual Voting Machines. Many states now have statewide which isc voter lists the database everyone is talking about. The Voter Registration databases that in some cases there have been attempts to get into them. Voter registration database is not at all connected to the actual machines on which you vote. Use a simple scanning machine really and vote still on paper ballots which are then inserted into the machine and the ballot is kept and the machine has a card in it that is read and thats the results that come out at the end of the night. The entire system is overseen by local Election Officials. In most states that means a county clerk. At more local levels states like the New England States it is done at the town level. Even in tiny connecticut you have 169 towns. Each one has its own election andcials and moderators poll workers all hired by local officials. At a state level is extremely decentralized. The laws governing elections are mostly at the state level and they differ somewhat by state there is usually an Election Commission that actually oversees any kind of enforcement of infractions. Lets Say Something is reported to our office. Maybe theres very long lines at the polls. Hotlinezen can call our and every state has a hotline as well. We would then report any infraction that sounded serious Elections Enforcement Commission and they would be charged with seeing whether something should be done about it. You can see theres over 10,000 local jurisdictions actually running each election and within that there are hundreds of polling places in each one of those jurisdictions. Host i want to focus on the Voter Registration databases. Advisor for the Trump Campaign has a column in todays usa today focusing on those databases, saying there is 2. 75 Million People that have registration in more than one state, more than 1. 8 million dead pool are listed as voters. If the Voter Registration files are wrong what is to keep people from showing up in another name or voting twice . Guest again, it is heavily regulated. We are very careful before we take anyone off the list. That usually explains why there are so many duplications. Realize you have to change your registration every time you move. Sometimes it within your own town. In connecticut we have a separate list that has a star next to it. So i thinkre printed the chance that someone could go and change a lot of things on the list and it not be detected would be very difficult because we print the list of week in advance. Paper and is still on ironically that becomes a protection of sorts. Up to thesomeone came desk and their name is either not on the list or on the list inappropriately. In almost every state you have to produce some sort of id to show you are the person you claim to be. There has been a lot of discussion about what you need as an id but almost every state has some requirement that you show one. The fight has been over what kind of id you need. Id and yout have an are not on the list, you cannot vote unless you absolutely claim you should be on the list and then in 15 states we have something called election day registration so you can go to town hall register with proper id and vote. It all comes down to the fact that you need to identify yourself. Many of these jurisdictions are extremely local. People know people. That is a protection as well. In your time as the head of the National Association of secretaries of state how many cases of proven voter fraud have you seen . We have literally gone to try and look for it because there has been so much discussion. There is long academic references to this. There has been a lot of studies on this. There was one i can remember in throughar that looks over one billion votes counted and 2014. 10 accountse 14 possible of alleged voter fraud. That someone commented jokingly that you are more likely to be struck by lightning and to experience voter fraud. It just doesnt happen. Host in a smell is the secretary of state of connecticut. Appreciate your time this morning. Is these merrill secretary of state of connecticut. Appreciate your time this morning. We want to hear from viewers. Grace in indiana. Clinton supporter. Good morning. Caller good morning. About this rigging. I have two comments. I have been voting since the Truman Administration and they take everything but my blood. Never been arrested. Hillary clinton has got 400, 500 wightman in Washington Mens against her white in washington thats against her. Shes got putin dropping emails. And shes got donald trump trying to put her in jail. The fbi puts everybody in jail and they didnt arrest her. Who is this rigged against . Its not donald trump. We need to get rid of the Republican Party. I am a swing voter and i would like to keep ryan. Thank you. Is on the line for undecided voters. Good morning. Caller good morning. I guess what im trying to say here is i think when donald talking about rigging elections i dont think he means actually physically like the voting boxes and how the votes are counted and things like that. I talking about rigging elections i dont think he means actually think he is referring a general bias in the liberal media towards him. Thats kind of what im thinking. Host he writes in that tweet from sunday that we showed he said the election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing crooked hillary but also at many polling places. He specifically said that rigging is happening at polling places. Caller i can only speculate as to what hes talking about. With this specific issue i think people trying to influence voters on their way in. Things of that nature. Not necessarily influencing the people in charge of the polls. Or to count votes differently or Something Like that. In flushing, new york. Undecided voter. Caller good morning. I agree with the gentleman who just called earlier. Thatd trump suggests democracy itself is rigged in the United States. If you see the media the way they behave they have already made the decision that donald trump is out. The democratic process in itself is rate rigged. Bernie sanders says the economy was rigged, hes 100 right. E know how to count votes thats not the question. The question is the democratic system itself is rigged. It is corrupt. But we know how to count votes. Thats not the problem we have now. Host you are not concerned about the physical process of votes being counted correctly on november 8 . How to do that. We have no problem with that. The problem is the political process itself is rigged. When they kicked out Bernie Sanders from the democratic convention, americans are not for real change. They have insiders who are lying, cheating, who are corrupt. They have to be leading the world. Donald trump is not a good person may be. You want to is if see for the future of this country who is telling the truth , Hillary Clinton is not a good person. Bill is in canton illinois voting for a third party candidate. Good morning. Caller i think the news media failed to understand that the secretary of state of indiana disclosed that a liberal group registeredpatriots democrats who were deceased in 55 counties and Loretta Lynch has refused to investigate. Franken won his seat in minnesota it was proven by felons in prison that were allowed to vote in legally. And its widespread. Are doing it is these liberal groups are registering people as democrats and also people that are and having shills go and vote in their name. Its very obvious. Will point you to one of the statistics that has been put out that secretary of state that we talked to earlier mentioned one study. Heres another. It is mentioned by usa todays editorial board. They cite a professor at Loyola Law School who has found credible evidence of just 35 in 830es of voter fraud four million ballots that have been cast in National General elections from 2000 to 2014. Do you just not believe those statistics . Caller i will just prove it to you. When was in charge he was represented with 100 cases of voter fraud and he said he refused to investigate. Thats documented in the wall street journal. You just said something that contradicts what was in writing from a major newspaper. Just like when the black panthers refused to let people in to vote in the voting poll unless they voted for obama. It happened in arizona and new hampshire. Frauds widespread voter and if america doesnt believe then theyve got curtains over their eyes. Its ridiculous, man. Im ashamed of the american system. Its totally the integrity is totally lost. Host on election day when the results come in, will you accept the result . Becauseill accept it 99. 9 of the news media has already put in their cast for Hillary Clinton. To report whats going on with these wikileaks emails. If people would take the time to read them there is no way they would cast a vote for that woman. Host gary is up next. Hillary clinton supported. Supporter. Caller unsubstantiated rhetoric. The gentleman that just called, ridiculous. Come on now. Statistically if you look at all of these voting outlets, you have 75 republicans running the place. If they really thought of p like that, cra with donald even be the primary candidate . Like president g obama said. Go to the voting polls. Vote for who you believe could run this country. I cant even believe people are fighting for a guy like that. Are you kidding me . In this country . Folkseeds to happen is just need to acknowledge that republicans are met. The last time i recall any type of voting fraud was when you had al gore running against bush. If you want to talk about voting fraud. Or have we forgotten that . Lets be real, folks. Host you think voting fraud does exist . At least in the 2000 election . Caller not primarily that. , therereally look at it was a consensus that took place at that time where it was a tie. I dont know how it ended up that way. We know who was in florida as the governor. We dont want that to happen again. Politics inink fraud does come into play sometimes in elections . Caller i cant say that i know it doesnt 100 percent because im not there. But i would imagine that if you really deeply checked into it there was probably some instances where it was probably tried. Host you think that could happen again this cycle . How this system is regulated, its very difficult to do that now. Especially with all the voting outlets having individuals, the machines that are not connected to the internet. Right you this thing have to consider that it isnt connected to the internet. Its very difficult to commit such acts of fraud the way folks are thinking this is happening. There is always a possibility that something could be miscounted. In terms of the system itself theyve got it down to a science where its totally difficult to commit fraud. Host a few tweets from members of congress as this debate has sprung up across the country. Senator ben cardin says calling our elections rigged is a shocking dangerous lie. There is no evidence that our elections are anything but free and fair. He also cites that same study from this wall street journal looking into more hunt then more than 834 million votes. Congressman chris murphy is from connecticut. He says republicans i know dont share trumps racism or his ridiculous notions of rigged elections. Time for more of them to make this clear. Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher got in a conversation with one of his followers about voterigging. An insult toas those trying to maintain the integrity of our voting process. Who has not flake saysrted donald trump states backed by tens of thousands of gop and democratic volunteers ensure the integrity of the electoral process. Elections are not rigged. We are talking about your confidence in the integrity of u. S. Elections today on the final day of the final debate of the 2016 cycle. That debate happening at the university of nevada las vegas. There is a live shot very early this morning. The debate less than 14 hours away now. Our coverage at cspan will begin at 7 30 tonight. You can watch that live on cspan. Don is in kingston, pennsylvania. Good morning. Good morning. I agree with the fellow that called the guy before last he was talking about voterigging in the United States. I have heard this every election. The democrats constantly try to deny that it goes on. Voter id i do not understand insist uponcrats fighting voter id in this country. Id to get everything in this country. To do anything in this country and i dont want the most important thing to have an id. I think they are basically saying they think the American People are too stupid to get their own voter id. One thing is about the election when hacking goes on and there is Cyber Security issues everywhere in private Enterprises Like in public and the government and everything else, to think that we dont allow ourissue and to election to be secured by the same kind of computer tally is kind of naive. Hacking goes on everywhere. Host did you listen to our interview with the secretary of state earlier in the show . Caller i was listening to little bit. Host she mentioned how these Voting Machines are not connect to the internet. Each jurisdiction maintains their own systems. Explain the hacking concern a little bit more to me. Caller it is so variable. In the state of pennsylvania there is no paper trail. Is nothing in paper that says this is what the vote was. This exists in numbers of states across the United States. Theres no paper trail anymore. Questioningom for like i am and it leaves room for suspicion. They should make some kind of standardized system in order to safeguard all this kind of questioning. Had the head of the Election Assistance Administration on our program effortsth talking about to help states with thei