The US elections are the safest in history, officials say, rejecting Trump’s fraud accusations

A coalition of US federal and state officials says they have no evidence that votes were compromised or altered in last week’s presidential election, rejecting unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud made by President Donald Trump.

The cybersecurity experts’ statement on Thursday (Friday NZT), which proclaimed the Nov. 3 election as the safest in U.S. history, represented the most direct repudiation to date of Trump’s efforts to undermine integrity. of the contest.

He echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials over the past week that the election went smoothly and without major irregularities.

“While we know that there are many unsubstantiated claims and opportunities for misinformation about our election process, we can assure you that we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and so should you,” the statement said.

“When you have questions, turn to election officials as trusted voices as they administer the elections.”

The statement was distributed by the Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Security Agency, which spearheaded federal election protection efforts.

It was tweeted by the agency’s director, Chris Krebs, who just hours earlier had been the subject of a Reuters story saying he had told associates that he expected to be fired by Trump.

Krebs has spoken out on Twitter repeatedly assuring Americans that the elections were safe and that their votes would be counted.

“United States, we are confident in the security of your vote, so should you,” he wrote.

Officials who signed the statement said they had no evidence that any voting system had removed or lost votes, changed votes, or was compromised in any way.

They said all states with close results had paper records, which allowed for each ballot to be counted, if necessary, and for “identification and correction of any errors or errors.”

“The November 3 election was the safest in US history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and verifying the entire electoral process before finalizing the outcome,” the statement said.

The message stands in stark contrast to Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud and widespread problems that he says could affect vote totals.

The problems that the Trump campaign and its allies have pointed out are typical of every election: problems with signatures, secret envelopes, and postmarks on mailed ballots, as well as the possibility of a small number of ballots being lost or lost. emitted incorrectly.

With Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump by wide margins in key states on the battlefield, neither of those issues would have any impact on the election outcome.

The Trump campaign has also launched legal challenges complaining that its election observers were unable to examine the voting process.

Many of those challenges have been dismissed by the judges, a few hours after their presentation; again, none of the complaints show any evidence that the election outcome has been affected.

The authors of the statement include the presidents of the National Association of State Electoral Directors and the National Association of State Secretaries, who conduct elections at the state level, and the executive committee of the government-industry coordinating council that includes all major voting equipment providers. .