Posted on 10/21/2016 7:19:56 PM PDT by rickmichaels
Russia has offered to monitor the Election Day in at least three states, saying that it would be willing to send someone “for a short period of time, when convenient” to observe the voting process.
Texas and Oklahoma predictably turned Russia down. Louisiana’s Secretary of State ran the suggestion by Homeland Security and the FBI, ultimately telling the Russians that flooding from Hurricane Matthew had prevented him from accepting the offer.
“Had this flood event not occurred, we would certainly have been open to such a visit, but I cannot meet such a request with the situation I currently have in front of me,” the Louisiana official wrote, inviting the Russians to get back in touch in 2020 “if you are still desirous to visit a precinct in a presidential election.” But a rep for the Louisiana Secretary of State later called Russia’s request a “propaganda ploy.”
The U.S. Department of State called the offer “nothing more than a PR stunt,” while White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it was “appropriate” to question Russia’s motives.
The Russian state-controlled publication Izvestia reported that its suggestion was “categorically rejected,” calling the U.S. response “harsh.”
Russia’s offer to send election monitors has come public amid Donald Trump’s suggestions that the election may be “rigged” and that the voting process may be plagued by fraud. Trump said Thursday that he would “totally accept the results—if I win.”
Russia’s offer comes amid growing concern in the U.S. intelligence community that Moscow was involved in the hacking of Democrats’ correspondence — U.S. officials have accused Russia of engaging in the hacking to meddle with the U.S. presidential campaign.
Trump has repeatedly called for closer relations with Russia, and he said earlier this week that if he is elected, he would consider meeting with Vladimir Putin even before his inauguration.
What a joke. Commies offering election monitors. May be China will offer human rights watchers. May be ISIS will offer peace regiment.
Can we invite them to shutdown and barricade CNN, MSNBC,NBC,ABC,CBS,NY Times,WaPo,etc.?
I posted earlier today from 2012.
The NAACP and Obama invited election monitors to monitor the election then.
Where was the outrage ?
They’ll have some fun with this. I expect Putin to say he’s had contact with both Trump and Hillary!
We need the little up and down guys that facebook has.
We are becoming a “third world nation”
It’s not trolling. We have massive widespread voting fraud. The more people watching, the better.
No, it’s only fair. I was an elections monitor in Stavropol, birth place of Gorbachev, forgot what year, 89 or 90. They were leaving Communism. Now, we are going Communist.
In this day and age our own election monitors are powerless to do anything about what they see. They are told to sit down- and shut up or they will be ejected.
Putin does have a sense of humor.
Joke? Not quite. Russia today is not the same as USSR, Vladimir Putin isn’t globalist and they’re fighting USIL/ISIS obama/hillary created, funded via proxies, trained and armed, I’d trust Putin than Obama’s or Clinton’s AFLCIO/SEIU maintaining soros’ eVoting machines.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.