Don’t fall for hype about ‘rigged’ election

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican from Cedar Rapids, was quick to respond to claims by his party's presidential nominee that the upcoming election will be 'rigged.”

'As the state's Commissioner of Elections, I can assure that Iowa's elections are not rigged. My pledge to every Iowan is that you will be able to cast your vote and your vote will count,” Paul wrote in an official statement. The words were backed up by Republican and Democratic county auditors throughout the state.

Gov. Terry Branstad should have joined state election officials in attempting to remove any shadow of a doubt about the integrity of Iowa's elections. Instead, Branstad, a Republican whose son leads Donald Trump's Iowa campaign, responded to Trump's unproven and reckless rhetoric by pulling out a red herring - expressing concern there is 'collusion” between the national media and Clinton to help get her elected next month.

It shouldn't have to be said, but Pate nonetheless made clear that Branstad was comparing apples to oranges. We'll repeat the gist of it here: There is a significant difference between media attention and voter fraud - something we're sure the governor also could see, if his political blinders were removed.

In fact, it wasn't too long ago that a different Iowa Secretary of State went looking for widespread voter fraud and came up empty-handed. That two-year, $250,000 witch hunt led to six criminal convictions, which represented .00037 percent of all votes cast. Total irregularities that prompted further investigations were 117, less than 0.008 percent of the total vote count.

Regardless of what Trump tweets, these investigations made clear there is no large-scale voter fraud in Iowa. Study after study has yielded similar results throughout the country: There is virtually no voter fraud anywhere in the U.S. Out of the 1 billion votes cast across America in elections from 2000 to 2014, authorities identified 31 possible cases of impersonation fraud.

As for media bias, we, too, wonder what the presidential election would look like today if Trump's candidacy had been taken more seriously and was more rigorously vetted during the primary campaign season. Nonetheless, we have faith that Iowa voters will do their homework before marking their ballots.

In fact, the only way this or any election can be 'rigged” is if voters fall prey to misleading campaign rhetoric, or disengage from the process entirely.

The integrity of the election process is not in question.

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