Maine gov echoes Trump on ‘rigged’ election

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) on Tuesday echoed GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in expressing doubt about the legitimacy of U.S. elections.

LePage said he isn’t confident about a “clean election” due to a lack of voter ID laws.

“I am not confident we’re going to have a clean election in Maine,” LePage said in an interview with local radio station WVOM highlighted by CNN.

{mosads}”The left, the Democratic party, insists on not having IDs. And will people from the cemetery be voting? Yes. All around the country. The media and the Democratic party want everybody to vote, whether they’re citizens or not,” he said.

“And I think that we need a photo ID when we go to vote. And I think that it should be provided by the state at no cost to its residents, and it’s not a big issue,” he added.

Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric in recent days about the election being “rigged.” Trump claimed in a tweet Sunday that the election was being rigged by the media and “at many polling places.”

LePage said Tuesday that U.S. elections will only be legitimate with proper voter ID legislation.

“Until we do that I don’t think the elections in the state of Maine or in the Unites States are legitimate,” he said.

“We know that there are counties in this country that get more votes than there are citizens in their counties. So what does that tell you?” he said.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and a number of GOP senators have expressed confidence in the electoral system and dismissed Trump’s claims in recent days. President Obama on Tuesday also called on Trump to “stop whining” about the topic.