US President Donald Trump has refused to concede the presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden. Trump has been baselessly alleging widespread voter fraud, despite presenting no evidence to support such his claim. He has also launched a flurry of legal challenges to projected results in key states won by Biden.
On Friday evening (IST), Trump once again called the election "rigged" and said, "For years the Dems have been preaching how unsafe and rigged our elections have been. Now they are saying what a wonderful job the Trump Administration did in making 2020 the most secure election ever. Actually this is true, except for what the Democrats did. Rigged Election!"
Meanwhile, Trump's lawyers have told judges that they don’t believe his claims that to be true. At least two of Trump’s lawyers have backed away from suggestions that the election was stolen or fraudulent after they were questioned by the judges handling the cases, reported The Wall Street Journal. In other instances, lawyers representing Trump or other Republicans have said under oath they have no evidence of fraud, the report added.
Besides, US election security officials have also rejected Trump's fraud claims. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," two committees within the Department of Homeland Security that worked on protecting US voting systems affirmed on Thursday.
"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," members of committees, which include officials from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee (GCC) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement.
"This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," the statement 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," the statement added.
(With PTI inputs)
