The FBI's announcement contradicts the president's warnings.
August 26, 2020, 8:00 PM
• 3 min read
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleThe Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday that it has not seen a "coordinated national voter fraud effort during a major election."
"We're fully aware that COVID-19 in the expectation of the increased mail-in ballots has created a new environment for this election cycle," a senior FBI official told reporters on a conference call. "However, we have not seen to date a coordinated national voter fraud effort during a major election. It would be extraordinarily difficult to change a federal election outcome through this type of fraud alone, given the range of processes that we need to be affected or compromised by an adversary, at the local level."
President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked mail-in voting, saying it will lead to fraud.
"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" President Trump tweeted in July.
A senior intelligence official said there has been no information or intelligence that any nation-state is engaging activities to undermine any part of the mail-in vote or ballots.
A senior DHS official said that the Department’s cyber arm, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has worked with "thousands" of state and local governments to prepare for the 2020 presidential election.
"What we know is the target of election infrastructure is in the playbook," the senior DHS official told reporters. "We saw it in 2016. We know it's an option now. We continue to receive reporting from state local election officials of scanning and probing of election infrastructure, as a whole, which is what you'd expect to see on election and IT systems as a whole."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
