US President Donald Trump has alleged that China played a role in rigging the 2020 presidential election, claiming Beijing illicitly accessed American voter data
US President Donald Trump addresses the nation(Image: Getty)
US President Donald Trump has alleged China had involvement in manipulating the 2020 election, when he was defeated in both the electoral college and popular vote by Joe Biden.
During his prime-time address on Thursday, July 16, Trump announced he is immediately declassifying and releasing “critical intelligence, claiming to be revealing shocking vulnerabilities in election infrastructure.
“This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference,” he said.
“Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you.”
Trump claimed China unlawfully obtained access to US voter information.
“That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities. Which is exactly what was happening,” Trump said.
Voter information is typically publicly available on record in the majority of states.
Before his address, Trump suggested it would feature “really big news” regarding election security.
He informed reporters on Tuesday: “It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”
Trump has maintained for years that his defeat to Biden resulted from voter fraud.
Biden secured victory with 306 electoral votes and 51.3% of the national popular vote. Trump obtained 232 electoral votes and 46.8% of the popular vote.
In January 2021, US intelligence released a report concluding that foreign interference played no part in the 2020 election. The findings were made public by the Biden administration the following March.
“We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results,” the report, issued under Trump, said.
“We assess that it would be difficult for a foreign actor to manipulate election processes at scale without detection by intelligence collection on the actors themselves, through physical and cyber security monitoring around voting systems across the country, or in post-election audits,” it said.
