pictures created on October 22, 2020 shows US President Donald
Trump (L) and former Democratic Presidential candidate and former
US Vice President Joe Biden during the final presidential debate at
Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22, 2020.
JIM WATSON, Morry GASH / AFP
There is no evidence of compromised ballots or corrupt voting
systems in the US election, officials said Thursday, as a top
Democrat accused Republicans who refuse to accept President-elect
Joe Biden’s win of “poisoning” democracy.
Their messages came hours after President Donald Trump once
again cried foul, retweeting a baseless claim that an election
equipment maker “deleted” 2.7 million votes for him nationwide.
Biden, who leads by more than five million in the popular vote,
cemented his victory late Thursday by winning Arizona, US networks
said, flipping the state Democratic for the first time since
1996.
Arizona gives Biden a 290-217 lead over Trump in the Electoral
College, with 270 needed to win the White House.
With most Republican lawmakers having yet to acknowledge Biden’s
win, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top
Democrat, accused them Thursday of “denying reality” and
“auditioning for profiles in cowardice.”
“Instead of working to pull the country back together so that we
can fight our common enemy Covid-19, Republicans in Congress are
spreading conspiracy theories, denying reality and poisoning the
well of our democracy,” he said.
Senior US federal and state election officials meanwhile in a
statement rejected Trump’s claims of fraud, saying that “the
November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
The statement was issued by the Election Infrastructure
Government Coordinating Council, a public-private umbrella group
under the primary federal election security body, the Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost
votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” they
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
said.
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It was signed by the heads of the National Association of State
Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of
State — the officials who manage elections at the state level — and
by the chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission.
– ‘Absurd circus’ – The statement came just
hours after Trump’s retweet, which in addition to claiming 2.7
million “deleted” votes also said hundreds of thousand had been
switched from him to Biden in Pennsylvania and other states.
speaks during election night in the East Room of the White House in
Washington, DC, early on November 4, 2020. MANDEL NGAN /
AFP
It was the latest in a series of bogus assertions Trump and
Republicans have put forth in order to reject Biden’s victory.
Republican lawmakers such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell have stood firm with Trump by supporting his refusal to
concede and backing his legal challenges.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighed in Thursday to
demand Republicans stop what she called an “absurd circus” and turn
to combatting the pandemic.
“Now that the people have expressed their views, Joe Biden has
won (and) Kamala Harris will be the first woman vice president of
the United States,” Pelosi said.
Political experts believe Republicans may be invoking such a
strategy as a way to rile up Trump’s base before two US Senate
runoff elections in Georgia that will determine which party
controls the chamber.
A total of 161 former national security officials, including
some who worked with Trump, additionally warned the current
administration’s continued delay in recognizing Biden’s victory is
posing “a serious risk to national security.”
In a letter, the group including ex-Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel
and Trump’s former National Security Council senior
counterterrorism director Javed Ali urged General Services
Administration chief Emily Murphy to recognize Biden as the
apparent president-elect.
Without a GSA signoff, transition funds and other resources
including access to intelligence briefings cannot flow to Biden and
his team, but Murphy has refused to budge.
AFP
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