Election Security Officials Guarantee Mail-In Voting Is Safe From Foreign Threats
Intelligence and election security officials confirmed on Wednesday that mail-in voting for the November presidential elections is safe from foreign threats.
Officials said that the standard security measures and decentralization make the United States' election system difficult to penetrate and change results.
A senior official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the U.S. has no intelligence that any nation is making attempts to undermine mail-in voting.
Federal officials are gearing up efforts to keep state and local election systems secure with less than 70 days left until Election Day.
This following the reveal of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential race, which resulted in criticism that the government had been slow and soft in its response.
Officials added that state and local governments are paying closer attention to the dangers of hacking and misinformation.
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen backed the claims of election security officials.
"We have yet to see any activity intended to prevent voting or to change votes, and we continue to think that it would be extraordinarily difficult for foreign adversaries to change vote tallies," Rosen was quoted in a report.
Mail-In Voting Threats
Many claimed that foreign states could manipulate mail-in voting.
U.S. President Donald Trump made remarks that foreign adversaries could affect mail-in voting and rig the election.
Trump said the widespread use of mail-in voting and absentee balloting would be one of the most significant elections in history.
Trump said that people like to talk about Russia and China and other places.
"They'll be able to forge ballots. They'll forge them. They'll do whatever they have to do," Trump was quoted in a report.
Attorney General William P. Barr has earlier claimed that it would be easy for a foreign government to make U.S. ballots and send them in.
Election officials later disputed Barr's claims.
Officials said there are many security measures in place to make any such attempts unlikely to occur.
"We know it's not just Russia operating in this space, but just to be clear, Russia is still very active when it comes to malign influence. And it works hard to get Americans essentially to tear each other apart politically," a senior FBI official was quoted in a report.
The official said that China is also a "significant malign foreign influence player" aiming to help the country "decline on the world stage."
Officials also said that Iran is trying to influence the U.S. election.
Foreign Threats
U.S. intelligence official earlier said that Russia is trying to undermine the candidacy of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bide.
China has used rhetorical efforts to harm Trump's chance of winning the president's seat for the second time.
Officials said they had seen persistent efforts to influence state or local computer systems.
Officials added that those efforts have mostly been unsuccessful and do not have a similar intensity as to the 2016 attacks.
One federal election security official said that they have not seen to date any increased activity in targeting election infrastructure for the last few months.
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