Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly said there has been no evidence of any compromised voting systems across the United States in the midterm elections.
CISA is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that works with government and industry partners to defend against current and predicted threats to cyber and physical infrastructure, including election infrastructure.
“We have seen no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was any way compromised in any race in the country,” Easterly said in a statement on Wednesday.
She also said that election officials in the days after the election are carrying out a “rigorous” process to finalize and certify the results, which include actions such as tabulating votes, reviewing procedures, and testing and auditing equipment.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly testifies before Congress in Washington on April 28, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“It’s important to remember that this thorough and deliberative process can take days or weeks, depending on state laws; these rigorous procedures are why the American people can have confidence in the security and integrity of the election,” she said.
“We urge everyone to look towards your state and local election officials for the most accurate and up-to-date information about vote counts and to remain patient as election officials continue to do their jobs and carry out the certification process.”
Trump Raises Concerns Over Voting in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in support of the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla), at the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition in Miami on Nov. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Former President Donald Trump, who has expressed continued skepticism toward the accuracy of the vote count in the 2020 election and alleged there was widespread voter fraud, on Wednesday questioned whether there was voter fraud in the midterms. Trump in 2020 lost the presidential race to now-President Joe Biden.
“Same thing is happening with Voter Fraud as happened in 2020???,” the former president asked on Truth Social on Tuesday, while voting was still underway and polls had yet to close.
In another post, he wrote: “Maricopa County in Arizona looks like a complete Voter Integrity DISASTER. Likewise Detroit (of course!), Pennsylvania, and other places. Not being covered by the Fake News Media!”
Trump also asked people in Arizona to make sure they cast their vote. “People of Arizona: Don’t get out of line until you cast your vote. They are trying to steal the election with bad Machines and DELAY. Don’t let it happen!”
Maricopa County officials earlier in the day said that tabulators in about 20 percent of polling sites in the county were malfunctioning, but that voters were still able to vote, although the ballots would be placed in a secured box. Officials on Twitter later said that voters could vote at other locations if the tabulator was not working at their site.
Trump said of Detroit: “The Absentee Ballot situation in Detroit is REALLY BAD. People are showing up to Vote only to be told, ‘Sorry, you have already voted.’ This is happening in large numbers, elsewhere as well. Protest, Protest, Protest!”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson denied the claim and accused Trump of having “spread lies to foment or encourage political violence” in Michigan.
In a lengthier statement late Tuesday, Benson’s office said that according to the Detroit City Clerk’s office, “in a few instances,” voters were informed that “some e-pollbooks displayed an error message stating that the number on the ballot they were about to provide to the voter in the precinct was identical to a number on an absentee ballot that had already been issued.” When this occurred, the poll worker “added an additional letter to the precinct ballot to distinguish them from the absentee ballots,” and then gave the voter the precinct ballot to vote with.
“In all circumstances, eligible voters were able to vote,” Benson’s office said. It is unclear whether anyone ineligible also voted, however.
Trump said on TruthSocial that in Pennsylvania, officials “announced that it could take days to determine the winner,” calling the situation “outrageous.”
According to a report by The New York Times, the delay is, in part, caused by a lawsuit in Philadelphia that accused the city of being vulnerable to duplicate ballots, and requested that Philadelphia election officials to bring back a process called “poll book reconciliation,” which is designed to weed out duplicate ballots due to in-person votes that had already had mail-in or absentee ballots under the same name.
A total of 18 U.S. states changed their rules for absentee voting in 2022. Some of the most substantial changes have come in response to the unprecedented use of mail-in voting in 2020. While blue states tend to focus on cementing the mail-in voting expansion executed during the COVID-19 pandemic, red states lean toward restrictions addressing the 2020 election controversies.
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