Trump Doubles Down On 'Rigged Election' Comments

Donald Trump is doubling down on his comments that the forthcoming American election may be 'rigged'. 

The US Republican presidential nominee, who's now losing ground in some key battleground states to his Democratic rival, has said the vote on 8th November is 'absolutely rigged' not only by the media but also at polling places. 

Here's our US correspondent Lorna Shaddick.

IN: UPSOT Tell the truth...
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UPSOT Chanting TELL THE TRUTH! TELL THE TRUTH!

The crowd at this Trump rally in Wisconsin has a message for American journalists.

UPSOT Chanting TELL THE TRUTH! TELL THE TRUTH!

They see the media coverage of the election campaign as biased against the candidate they've come to see - and he eggs them on.

SOT - Donald Trump

The media's trying to rig the election by giving credence to false stories that have no validity.

But the press isn't the only thing Mr. Trump thinks is rigged against him.

SOT - Trump

They even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths. And believe me there's a lot going on. People that have died 10 years ago are still voting. Illegal immigrants are voting. So many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is very, very common.

And as the presidential campaign enters its home stretch, the idea that the electoral process itself is unfair is a message his campaign seems to have turned to with increasing frequency.

The Clinton campaign thinks it knows why Donald Trump's touting these theories - it's released a video highlighting what it calls the Republican nominee's 'admiration' for radio host Alex Jones, who's best known for pushing conspiracy theories.  

UPSOT video

Trump to Jones: I will not let you down, you will be very very impressed I hope.

Jones: I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children. I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay!

And there's no doubt the InfoWars founder  - who has had Donald Trump as a guest on his show - has talked up the issue in recent months:

UPSOT - Alex Jones

Mr Trump I'm not going to lay things out here you don't already know. But I am going to ask you, to seriously think about making the issue of Hillary's election fraud in the primaries one of the central issues to defeating her in November.

Some voters seem to approve of the rhetoric - in a recent poll for Politico and Morning Consult, 41% said they think the election could be 'stolen' from Mr Trump. In fact, the Brennan Centre for Justice at New York University's School of Law says numerous studies have shown that voter fraud in US elections is very rare - earlier this year the Washington Post found just 31 credible cases of impersonation out of over a billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014.

And meanwhile, the Republican party establishment IS worried about the effect all this rhetoric might have. Speaker Paul Ryan says he's fully confident the States will carry out the election with integrity. And Mr. Trump's own vice President has contradicted him:

SOT - Mike Pence

We will absolutely accept the results of the election. Look the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media, that's where this sense of a rigged election goes here.

A Republican campaign lawyer has said sowing fear about voter fraud could even be dangerous and cause unrest on election day - but with its poll numbers down in key swing states, it seems the Trump campaign's message of suspicion is the tone it wants to set from now until at least 9th November. Lorna Shaddick, New York.