Many Americans say the 2016 election would go down as the lowest point in the history of the U.S. in view of the scandals that have surrounded the major candidates.

Some of those who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said they were skeptical at the candidature of Democratic Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

The two nominees are the leading candidates for the Nov. 8 presidential election.

They described both Clinton and Trump as unusual candidates in view of the scandals that have surrounded them, adding that the two major political parties should have had better candidates.

Ms Alicia Richmond, a saleswoman at Tuesday Evening, a supermarket in Newport News, said that she might not participate in the Nov. 8 elections.

According to her, the two leading candidates are unpopular while other candidates did not have a chance to win.

“Both leading candidates are not favourable to me neither do I support the other candidates. I would rather not cast my vote on the election day.

“Clinton is a liar and I don’t want a liar as my president. Trump talks before he thinks, his brain doesn’t connect with his mouth before he talks.

“But it is better to elect a Trump than a Clinton; Trump will be easier to remove because he will definitely run into troubles and he will be removed for the vice president,” she said.

Ray Suarez, a former anchor, Al Jazeera America and former Senior Correspondent, PBS Newshour, faulted the nomination of the two candidates.

“This election is peculiar in the sense that Americans have no better alternative for the presidential contest apart from Clinton and Trump, bringing this election to its lowest point in history.

“Not that there is much at stake compared to past elections, but because this is a brand of celebrity hype and counter personal attacks.

“It is possible for anyone to rise to be the nominee of a major political party; it has never been a scenario that someone so unpopular would become the nominee of a major party.

“For this to happen for two major parties, where both the nominees are unpopular, is so bizarre,” he said.

According to him, it is so unusual that it is difficult to put it to context.

He argued that Americans deserved better, however, if Clinton got a serious challenger, the situation who have been different.

“We had better Republican candidates, 16 in number, yet none of them caught fire with the public the way that allowed Trump to win the nomination.

“It is just a crazy, unusual, off the chat sort of campaign.

“Trump is equally unprepared and unready because he would shot himself on the foot so often.

“Trump is so odd that Clinton has been challenged and tested less than if her opponent was more of a conventional Republican candidate,” he said.

The Vice President, International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), Patrick Butler also shared a similar view.

Butler regretted that the presidential candidates had not only lost sight of the issues but were “spending more time denying lies peddled on social medium instead of selling policies to the electorate.”

Executive Director, Centre for Responsive Politics, Ms Sheila Krumholz, also said it was strange for a candidate to allege rigging in the U.S. election.

According to her, the claim by Trump that there are plans to rig the elections has raised fears of potential outbreak of violence.

“With this in mind, there is fears of potential outbreak of violence in ‘pocket’ areas as Trump has threatened not to concede defeat if he loses the election to Clinton.

“In the era of news suspicion, we might have a similar challenge of having these sorts of candidates in the future,” Suarez warned.

The media have equally been blamed for failing to interrogate the past lives of the leading candidates especially when they were seeking their parties’ nomination.

The U.S. Department of State had told participants of the 2016 U.S. General Elections Embed programme in Washington D.C that there had been fears of possible violence at the poll.

The Media Relations Officer, Mark Zimmer, regretted that the election “is a highly charged one”, saying the electioneering is an interesting but unusual event in the U.S. history.

Two Nigerian journalists from NAN and Channels Television are among the 24 participants at the programme.

The programme is being administered by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Press Centers and U.S. Embassy Posts.