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Election officials say US President Donald Trump’s claims about voter fraud are unfounded, and reassured Americans about the integrity of US elections. Photo: AP

Top US election officials reject Trump claims of fraud, say no evidence of changed votes

  • ‘The November 3 election was the most secure in American history,’ said a statement signed by state election directors and secretaries of state
  • US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed voter fraud and lost ballots led to his loss to Democrat Joe Biden
Senior US federal and state election officials said on Thursday that there was “no evidence” that votes were lost or changed, or voting systems corrupted, in the US presidential election.
The officials, responsible for election security across the country, rejected claims made by President Donald Trump and Republicans that fraud and lost ballots led to his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in last week’s election.

“The November 3 election was the most secure in American history,” they said in a statement.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” they 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.”

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The statement was issued by the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council, a public-private umbrella group under the primary federal election security body, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

It was signed by the heads of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State – the officials who manage elections at the state level – and by the chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission.

The statement amounted to the most direct repudiation to date of Trump’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest. It echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials over the last week that the election unfolded smoothly without broad irregularities.

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It came hours after Trump retweeted a baseless claim that an election equipment maker “deleted” 2.7 million votes for him nationwide and switched hundreds of thousand from him to Biden in Pennsylvania and other states.

It was the latest in a series of bogus assertions Trump and Republicans have put forth to reject Biden’s victory.

The company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the Pennsylvania Department of State flatly denied Trump’s claims.

The statement from the election security officials also came amid reports that Trump could fire the head of CISA, Chris Krebs, who has made a strong effort to stifle unsupported allegations of fraud that have surfaced while the votes have been counted around the country. Krebs retweeted the statement.

“America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too,” he has stated on Twitter.

Despite that, rumours and conspiracy theories of a corrupted vote that allegedly “robbed” Trump have flooded the internet, and Republicans and the Trump campaign have filed multiple lawsuits around the country claiming irregularities. So far none have been substantiated in court.

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The issues 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 Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump by wide margins in key battleground states, none of those issues would have any impact on the outcome of the election.

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.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest over the results of the presidential election. Photo: Reuters

The statement said that election officials across the country are currently “reviewing and double-checking” their state and local results before certifying the numbers.

“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.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: ‘no proof’ of lost or changed ballots
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