On Wednesday, United States officials said they had not seen evidence of foreign interference within mail-in voting processes and no sign of efforts of fraud that attempt to undermine the nation's voting process amid President Donald Trump's continuous accusations otherwise.
No signs of foreign interference
Multiple federal agency officials fell short of directly going against Trump's allegations. However, the comments suggest there have been no external attempts that aimed to tally the vote in favor of specific politicians or candidates.
Trump had previously claimed that voter fraud and external parties would lead the November elections to be manipulated amid the rise of mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic threatening the nation's public health.
According to AP News, on July 30, Trump tweeted that mail-in voting conducted by several states was a catastrophic disaster. The president claimed that while Democrats talked about foreign interference in voting, they knew that mail-voting was an easy way for other countries to manipulate the nation's votes.
Reporters asked an Office of the Director of National Intelligence senior official on Wednesday regarding the threat of foreign entities making their own voting ballots or the potential spread of disinformation of the mail-in voting process. The official said there was no evidence to support the claims or fears since there was no sign of any interference of manipulation of the mail-in voting process.
A senior official from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that officials have not yet seen evidence or attempt to manipulate mail-in voting within the United States. He also noted that the scattered and varied election systems used in the country made it difficult to tamper with ballots in a significant amount, as reported by CBS News.
Three of the primary agencies that have been given the responsibility of fighting against threats to voting in the United States were the ones who held the briefing with only two months before the November elections and the start of mail-in voting scheduled in a few weeks.
Fraudulent mail-in voting
President Trump had, for several months, continued to accuse mail-in voting as being fraudulent and continues to deny the results of the ballots. Democratic officials, on the other hand, say that agencies have not been fully public with their information on possible threats to the voting process.
A recent Senate report with new details and information about the meddling of Russia in the United States' elections in 2016 underscored the risk of foreign interference in this year's national voting.
On Wednesday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen where he gave a speech confirming that the US has yet to detect activities that attempt to manipulate votes. He added, however, that the government has seen attempts at swaying influence among voters and spreading disinformation through public opinion.
According to KKTV, Rosen cautioned Americans that the country is not able to escape the possibility of foreign entities attempting to take advantage of the pandemic and seizing opportunities to further their agendas during elections.
