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Official: Hard To Rig Pennsylvania Elections, But Challenges Remain

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pennsylvania's top election official insists elections in this state are not rigged.

"The Pennsylvania Department of State and the 67 county election boards work diligently to safeguard and promote the integrity of our elections in our commonwealth," said PA Secretary of State Pedro Cortes on Thursday in Harrisburg.

Cortes says election officials in over 9,100 precincts have multiple safeguards to protect the vote.

"These standards include an audit capability independent from the way the votes are tabulated on election night. There is in fact an audit trail."

And, says Cortes, voting machines cannot be hacked.

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"Very important to note that voting machines in Pennsylvania are not connected to the internet," added Cortes.  "In fact they are not even connected to one another."

Still, a candidate can contest the results once the ballots are counted, and close elections will get automatic scrutiny.

"There is an automatic recount provision that occurs if the vote is within one-and-a-half percent," election attorney Ron Hicks told KDKA political editor Jon Delano.

Hicks, the Allegheny County Republican Party solicitor, says otherwise the candidate needs to allege specific fraud in a particular precinct or county.

"Those challenges can be anywhere from the voting machine wasn't properly calibrated, that the votes don't correspond to the number of people actually registered to challenges to absentee ballots or provisional ballots that were cast."

Since so many people in both parties run the local precincts, Heather Heidelbaugh, a Republican and former Allegheny County councilwoman who served on the county elections board, says it's impossible to rig a national election.

"In order to rig an entire United States election, you would have to involve millions of people in a conspiracy across many states.  Can there be problems in individual election districts?  Absolutely."

And those problems, says Heidelbaugh, can be caught by careful open monitoring.

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