John Matthews
WMAL.com
ROCKVILLE — (WMAL) “Categorically, you cannot – repeat, CANNOT rig the election in Maryland.”
Jim Shalleck, a Republican, former nominee for Montgomery County Executive and current Chairman of the County Board of Elections, says emphatically there is no way to systematically alter the outcome of state-wide elections in the state.
Each of Maryland’s 23 counties has a bi-partisan Board of Elections, which oversees bi-partisan election judges at each of the state’s polling places.
“Both parties have to sign off on the results,” Shalleck told News Channel 8 Tuesday. “We’re not connected to the Internet, and so the election returns that we forward to the state are on a secure confidential network.”
And as an additional security feature, all votes in the state are now recorded both electronically and on paper, so they can be checked as needed for accuracy.
But what of Donald Trump’s claims of massive voter fraud?
“Those are political claims, but as the person who oversees the Board of Elections in Montgomery County, we have over 3,000 election judges – Republicans and Democrats. You can’t rig the election with both parties participating,” Shalleck insists.
“We have a Republican Governor in a state that is two-to-one Democrat, by over a million votes,” Shalleck points out. “If you had a rigged system, you wouldn’t have Larry Hogan as our governor.”
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: CNN)
