The White House questioned Friday the intentions of Russia seeking to send observers to monitor the US elections next month. Russian media reported that requests by Russian officials to observe polls in three southern US states - Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana - had been turned down. Decisions about access to the polls are determined at the state level and the US government in Washington was not involved in the decision, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. The US has determined that Russian hackers gained access to Democratic Party officials' email in an alleged attempt to influence the election and that raises questions about their request, Earnest said. "It is unclear exactly what the Russians were intending to do in this case," he said. "It's appropriate that people might be suspicious of their motives or at least their motives might be different than what they have publicly stated, given the nefarious activities that they've engaged in in cyberspace." Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will be monitoring the election and Russian observers could have joined the mission but declined, Earnest said, suggesting they should have done so if they are interested in understanding free and fair elections.
