No evidence of voter fraud in ‘most secure’ US election in history

US officials have said they have found no evidence votes in the presidential election were compromised in any way, rejecting baseless claims from Donald Trump that the result was in doubt due to widespread voter fraud.  

A coalition of government and industry cybersecurity experts said the 3 November election was the most secure in US history, as they delivered the most direct blow yet to the Trump camp's efforts to undermine Joe Biden’s victory.

“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,“ the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement.

The statement came towards the end of a week where election experts and state officials have sought to assure voters that the election ran smoothly and securely despite the incessant, unfounded claims made by Mr Trump to the contrary.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the officials who signed the statement said.

They said all states with close results have paper records of each vote cast, allowing for recounts if necessary and for “the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors”.

Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, shared the statement on Twitter just hours after reports he had told associates he expected to be fired by Mr Trump. Mr Krebs had repeatedly urged followers to ignore misinformation about the election and shared several corrections issued against false claims.

“America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too,” he wrote as he shared the statement.

As recently as Thursday night, the outgoing president raged on Twitter over votes he claimed were “stolen” or “should not be allowed to count” in several states for reasons including fraudlent mail-in ballots and poll obervers being blocked from overseeing counts.

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.  

Mr Biden’s sizeable lead over Mr Trump in key battleground states means none of those issues would have any impact on the outcome of the election.

Trump's campaign has also launched several 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, and none of the complaints show any evidence that the outcome of the election was affected.

The authors of the statement rejecinting voter fraud 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 coordinating council that includes all the major voting equipment vendors.

Additional reporting by Associated Press