Top officials say US election ‘most secure’ in history
A coalition of federal and state officials said they have no evidence that votes were compromised or altered in last week’s US presidential election.
The statement from cybersecurity experts, which trumpeted the November 3 election as the most secure in American history, amounted to the most direct repudiation to date of President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest with unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud.
It echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials that the election unfolded smoothly without broad irregularities.
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The statement said: “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.
“When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”
The statement was distributed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which spearheaded federal election protection efforts.
Its leaders have been vocal on Twitter in reassuring Americans that the election was secure and that their votes would be counted.
The officials who signed the statement said they had no evidence that any voting system had deleted or changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
The statement continued: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalising the result.”
Former president Barack Obama - in his first TV interview since the election - said he was "troubled" that so many Republicans are "going along with, humouring" Mr Trump in his claims of fraud.
He told CBS it was "one more step in de-legitimising not just the incoming Biden administration but democracy".
The message is in stark contrast to Mr Trump’s unsupported claims of fraud and widespread problems that he insists could affect vote totals.
He has launched a series of legal challenges, though many of those lawsuits have been turned away by judges.
The issues Mr Trump’s campaign and its allies have pointed to are typical in every election: problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postmarks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.
With Mr Biden leading Mr Trump by wide margins in key battleground states, none of those issues would have any impact on the outcome of the election.
Mr Trump’s campaign has also launched legal challenges complaining that their poll watchers were unable to scrutinise the voting process.
Many of those challenges have been tossed out by judges, some within hours of their filing; again, none of the complaints show any evidence that the outcome of the election was affected.
The statement’s authors include the presidents of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State — who run elections at the state level — and the executive committee of the government-industry co-ordinating council that includes all the major voting equipment vendors.