INA-SOURCES
President Donald Trump used a Thursday primetime address to announce the release of dozens of declassified documents. He claimed the files, which are heavily redacted, prove flaws in the U.S. voting system and foreign interference in the 2020 election.
Much of the president's speech referenced several claims that he has made for at least the last six years and have been repeatedly rejected by federal reports, court rulings, election officials, and members of his first administration.
One set of the released documents focused on what Trump called "vulnerabilities" in U.S. election infrastructure.
"We assess that centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, poll books, and other official election websites, are most vulnerable to exploitation and adversaries," Trump said. "This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy."
But fact-checkers with PolitiFact noted that previous government reports found no known instances of successful foreign interference targeting election infrastructure to change the outcome of a U.S. election.
Another set of documents centered on allegations against China. Trump claimed the country accessed millions of U.S. voter records, including phone numbers and political party preferences.
"Over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files," Trump said. "This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare."
But PolitiFact found that the claim conflicts with an earlier announcement by U.S. intelligence agencies during Trump’s first term in office. At that time, officials warned that malicious actors could spread disinformation about voter registration data being hacked or leaked, but clarified that much of this information is publicly available already or can be purchased.
During his address, the president also released information about a voter registration investigation in Michigan and claimed that 28,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in some states. Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to notify states about non-citizens on voter rolls and to remove ineligible voters immediately, though some states do allow non-citizens to vote in local, not federal, elections.
Trump also used the address to advocate for his proposed election security legislation, the Save America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and an ID to cast a ballot.
The bill currently lacks the 60 votes needed to pass in the Senate, and would need bipartisan support. House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested using the budget reconciliation process to pass the bill along party lines, but some Republicans have expressed doubts about that strategy.
Critics of the legislation have argued it would restrict access to voting.
SOURCE: wbaltv
