Russia planning to send monitors to US on election day after 'rigged' claims

State department says move is a propaganda stunt, but observers are still welcome to come

(Getty Images)

Russia has said it wants to send observers to monitor the US presidential election on 8 November, following Donald Trump's claims the vote is '"rigged".

The US state department said the country was welcome to send monitors to polling stations, but added it believed the request was a "propaganda stunt".

Individual states have rejected applications for accreditation from Russian officials.

In early October, the US government formally accused Russia of hacking the Democratic party’s computer networks and said that Moscow was attempting to “interfere” with the US presidential election.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has publicly praised Republican candidate Mr Trump on several occasions.

But on Friday US state department spokesman, John Kirby, said there was no policy in place to refuse Russian observers.

Russian representatives have already been offered places on a team fielded by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Mr Kirby said. The OSCE monitors elections in all its member states, including the United States.

However Russian officials have decided the level of access available to OSCE observers is inadequate, RT reported.

Mr Kirby said: “We told the Russian government that they were welcome to observe our elections.

“The fact that they have chosen to not join the OSCE observation mission makes clear that this issue is nothing more than a PR stunt.”

He added: “There’s nothing for us to fear from having Russian observers observing our election.

“We’re very confident in the stability, the security and the strength of our electoral process. There’s no need to hide from that.”

On Thursday, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported Russian observers had applied directly to US states for accreditation and had been refused.

A Russian electoral official, cited by the paper, accused the state department of blocking the observers because of its “Russophobic tendencies”.

But Mr Kirby said he was not aware that individual US states had been advised to reject foreign observers.

An Oklahoma state official said on Friday they had denied a request from the Russian consulate to monitor the election there, adding that foreign delegates were not allowed into polling stations.

The Russian consul general in Houston, Alexander Zakharov, made similar requests to officials in Texas and Louisiana, local media reported. In both instances he was rejected.

In a letter provided by the Oklahoma state election board to USA Today,Mr Zakharov asked to have a consulate officer “at one of the ballot stations of Oklahoma with the goal of studying the US experience in organisation of [the] voting process”.

The Oklahoma secretary of state, Chris Benge, said he hoped the Russian officials could watch the US election process on TV.

“It is truly an amazing system,” he said.

He added: “While it would be our honor to offer the opportunity to observe our voting process, it is prohibited under state law to allow anyone except election officials and voters in or around the area where the voting takes place."

Texas secretary of state Carlos Cascos wrote: “only persons authorized by law may be inside of a polling location during voting. All other persons are not authorised and would be committing a Class C misdemeanor crime by entering.”

Mr Cascos instead offered to discuss the voting process with Mr Zakharov or his representatives, or to set up a meeting with local election officials.

A spokeswoman for Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler called the Russian request a “propaganda ploy.”

Mr Schedler explained to Mr Zakharov that his office in Baton Rouge sustained heavy damage in a flood which had left him short-staffed.

“Had this flood event not occurred, we certainly would have been open to such a visit, but I cannot meet such a request with the situation I currently have in front of me,” Mr Schedler wrote.

He told Mr Zakharov to contact him in 2020 if he is still interested in observing the election process.

The United States often sends monitors to observe elections in other countries with a history of voter fraud.

The OSCE will observe the US election with a delegation of 439 people from 10 countries.

It said the delegation included at least one Russian.