Russia sought to have monitors at polling locations in Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma on Nov. 8, but the bid was rebuffed by State Department and local officials, USA Today reports.
Calling it a “propaganda ploy,” Meg Casper, spokeswoman for Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, tells the newspaper that Schedler received a request to allow Russian monitors at the polls.
“We’ve allowed observers from overseas in the past from other countries, never from Russia,” Casper says, adding that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security also “told us not to do this.”
In a letter, Schedler declined the Russian request, explaining that his Baton Rouge office sustained heavy damage from a massive flood that 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,” Schedler wrote.
USA Today cites Russian media as saying Russia made the request to have monitors in the U.S. during talks with the State Department and was “categorically rejected.”
Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, have become prominent issues in the U.S. presidential campaign and were mentioned during the Wednesday night debate for allegedly interfering in the election.
The request was made in an apparent move to embarrass the United States over Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s claims of a “rigged election,” the newspaper says, citing Russian media.
