US federal election officials put out a statement stating “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised” on Thursday, 12 November, contradicting Trump’s twitter claims of voter fraud.
The committee announced that the 3 November US elections was the “most secure in American history”. This statement came hours after Trump’s tweet that claimed without any evidence that 2.7 million votes for him were deleted and these lost ballots led to Biden’s victory. Trump is yet to concede to Democratic President-elect, Joe Biden.
The statement was issued by the Election Infrastructure Government Coordination Council and was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that is in-charge of the security of voting machines and maintains the sanctity of the electoral process. This group includes top officials from the cybersecurity agency, the US Election Assistance Commission and secretaries of state and state election directors from around the country.
“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 said.
Since the agency is part of Trump’s cabinet, it seems to further delegitimise the President’s claim of voter fraud. The New York Times reported that Lily Adams, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said, “It has always been clear that this election was free, fair and secure, and now even Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security has fact checked his lies.”
Trump’s Claims Corrected By His Own Cabinet
The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber-agency has a unit called the ‘rumor control’ page on the agency’s website run by the agency director, Christopher Krebs to dispel misinformation. Krebbs was also in charge of security for elections across the 50 states in America.
On Thursday, Krebs shared a post by an election law expert that said, “Please don’t retweet wild and baseless claims about voting machines, even if they’re made by the president.”
Krebs has earned the displeasure of the White House for resisting the political pressure and backlash of speaking out and he expects to be fired by the Trump administration soon. CISA’s assistant director Bryan Ware stepped down on Thursday after the White House asked his resignation earlier this week, reported Reuters.
C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel, and the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray are rumored to be fired next by the White House staff according to The New York Times.
The internet has many Trump supporters backing his baseless allegations of voter fraud and his ‘robbed Presidency’ with the President having filed multiple lawsuits around the country to secure himself a second administration. However, the courts have so far not substantiated any of his claims.
"When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary," the officials said in a report by Agence France-Presse.
Biden Wins Arizona Cementing His Now 290 Electoral Vote Win
Democrat President-elect Joe Biden is unaffected by Trump’s refusal to concede and finds his behaviour “undemocratic” and “frankly an embarrassment”. In a recent projection by Edison Research on Thursday, 12 November, Biden has won the battleground state of Arizona.
This gives the Democrat 290 electoral votes which is more than the 270 votes he needed to be declared President. Biden is also winning the popular vote by 3.4 percentage which comes out to be over 5.2 million votes.
This rebukes Trump’s efforts to overturn the 3 November results that will have him and the Trump administration make way for Biden’s inauguration on January. For Trump to win, he would need to overtake Biden in at least three battleground states where Biden is currently in the lead, reported Reuters.
(Inputs by Agence France-Presse, New York Times, Reuters, NDTV and BBC)
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