• President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting will lead to voter fraud, suggesting that foreign countries will print counterfeit ballots, among other unsubstantiated concerns. 
• On Wednesday, top intelligence officials told reporters they have seen no coordinated voter fraud efforts from any nation but did warn the public about covert and overt influence operations. 
• That same day, Trump claimed that election officials could cause ballot miscounts, not the USPS. His statement came after the Postmaster General agreed to temporarily suspend changes that many felt would have prevented some mail-in ballots from being counted on time. 
• Several investigations have found that mail-in voting is safe, and Trump’s claims about the potential for a rigged election have now been rejected by top officials in his own administration, state officials from both parties, and nonpartisan voting experts.

Election Security Officials Rebuke Trump’s Claims 

Top intelligence officials said Wednesday that there is no evidence of foreign interference in mail-in voting, a major rejection of warnings shared by President Donald Trump and others in his administration.

For several months now, Trump has routinely warned against mail-in voting, falsely claiming that the process will lead to widespread voter fraud. 

He’s given a variety of claims for this belief, arguing that mailboxes will be robbed and ballots will be forged, among other things. He’s even said the 2020 election will be “rigged” by foreign countries printing counterfeit ballots.

Other members in his administration, including Attorney General William Bar, have appeared to defend that last claim. Still, several experts, studies, and investigations have explained that voting by mail is safe. On top of that, news outlets and social media platforms like Twitter have been working to warn the public when Trump makes unsubstantiated comments about mail-in voting. 

However, arguably one of the most important statements against Trump’s remarks came from high ranking officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Those officials spoke on the condition that they not be named. 

According to several different outlets, one senior intelligence official said: “We have no information or intelligence that any nation state threat actor is engaging in activity … to undermine any part of the mail-in vote or ballots.”

A senior FBI official also reportedly claimed that even if there is fraud, it won’t be enough to tip the scales of the election results. “We have not seen, to date, a coordinated national voter fraud effort during a major election and it would be extraordinarily difficult to change a federal election outcome through this type of fraud alone, given the range of processes that would need to be affected or compromised by an adversary at the local level,” they said.

The range of processes includes things like being able to find every registered voter’s address, forging signatures, and replicating the barcodes and special stock the ballots are printed on. 

FBI officials also noted that the agency is ready to tackle any potential voter fraud that could occur, given that the number of mail-in ballots is expected to increase because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

However, while there might not be any visible threat towards mail-in ballots, intelligence officials did continue to warn that a number of foreign countries, including Russia, China, and Iran, continue to engage in overt and covert influence operations aimed at the 2020 presidential race.

To that point, a seniors intelligence official said, “We encourage Americans to consume information with a critical eye.”

“Check out your sources before reposting messages,” they added. 

With these remarks, Trump’s claims about a rigged election have now been rejected by top officials in his own administration, state officials from both parties, and nonpartisan voting experts. Still, major rebukes like this haven’t stopped the president from peddling his voter fraud claims in the past.

Trump Blames Local Election Workers

At the same time, many politicians, especially Democrats, argued that Trump and Post Master General Louis DeJoy have been working to hurt the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to slow mail delivery and in turn influence the election in his favor. 

This is actually something many felt Trump admitted himself when he said he opposed stimulus funding for the agency. In an interview with Fox Business earlier this month, he said, “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”

“If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

Afterward, the post office making huge changes, including removing or locking up several mail drop boxes, cutting overtime hours, and decommissioning many sorting machines. Though the moves were blamed on the general decline of mail, DeJoy later agreed to temporarily suspend those plans until after the November election. Since then, the post office has worked to assure the public that it can handle all the election ballots to make sure they are counted in time. 

However, it seems that now the president is saying problems with counting ballots actually lie with election officials, not the post office. In an interview with The Washington Examiner Wednesday, the president was asked to confirm that he is not worried about the USPS’s ability to deliver ballots.

“It’s not the post office,” Trump said. “No, it’s the elections office. The post office — look, this is a con job. It’s like the Russian hoax. The post office has run the way it’s been run forever.”

He went on to claim that DeJoy will do a good job, saying, “but the post office is the post office.” 

He said that even if mail delivery were a day late, “that’s not the problem. The problem is when they dump all these [ballots] in front of a few people who are counting them, and they’re going to count them wrong. The post office is not to blame.”

The only thing I’m concerned about is the unsolicited ballots, where they’re going to send 80 million unsolicited ballots to people that they don’t even know if they’re alive or if they’re living there. I think it is a catastrophic disaster for this country.”

As of now, it seems like the president may be reangling his issues with mail-in voting, shifting concerns from the foreign countries, and the post office to local election workers. However, once again, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the country. Still, many warn that with the election just around the corner, Americans who wish to vote by mail should submit their ballots as early as possible. 

See what others are saying: (The Washington Examiner) (CNN) (CNET)