(TNND) — President Donald Trump outlined alleged vulnerabilities with the U.S. election system in a primetime address Thursday, focusing heavily on what he said were Chinese efforts to undermine his presidency and American elections, and calling once again for passage of a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to register and photo identification to cast a ballot.
Trump started his speech with a list of accomplishments from his second term but quickly turned his focus to election integrity.
Trump said he was declassifying and releasing “critical intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure” – an election system he said falls “catastrophically short” of the security that Americans deserve.
Trump said the documents, now available on the White House website, were gathered by a task force and cover multiple areas of concern with U.S. elections.
“Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” Trump told Americans. “It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls. And yet, we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots flowing aimlessly through the mail.”
Here are some key takeaways from Trump’s address on China’s alleged interference, voting system vulnerabilities, and his push for the SAVE America Act.
A previously unclassified 2021 intelligence report found “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.”
But Trump on Thursday night said the newly declassified documents show China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, starting during the 2020 election cycle and resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.
And Trump alleged a government cover-up of the known interference.
U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, he said.
But Trump said officials failed to inform him or Congress of the alleged threats.
Trump also said China engaged in efforts to undermine his first administration and his 2020 campaign, alleging China had also worked to influence the results of the 2018 midterms.
Trump said the new documents show China tried to undermine domestic confidence in his presidency and used contacts within the U.S. business community to turn business leaders against him.
Trump said dozens of significant U.S. intelligence community reports about China’s election targeting were kept out of his presidential briefings.
And Trump alleged his administration uncovered “burn bags” that were intended to destroy information but were apparently never used.
Trump said he’s ordered federal investigations into “how and why such crucial information was hidden.”
Casey Burgat, the legislative affairs program director at George Washington University, told The National News Desk via email that the 2020 election has already been investigated, audited, recounted, and litigated through more than 60 court cases. None produced evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome.
Trump said the new documents prove that Americans were “blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems.”
Trump said the documents show how U.S. voting systems are vulnerable and easily compromised, and he said the documents show the U.S. intelligence community kept quiet about the known shortcomings.
Voter registration databases, poll books and other official election websites are most vulnerable to exploitation, Trump said.
Trump said some of the new documents detail evidence of alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan.
And he said a Department of Homeland Security review included in the documents found about 278,000 noncitizens who were registered to vote in federal elections.
“Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is higher than that,” Trump said.
Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee said Trump continues to “sow these doubts” over the integrity of U.S. elections because this fall’s midterm elections are not looking good for the GOP.
“(Trump) simply refuses to deal with the number one issue on Americans’ minds: cost of living,” McKee said via email. “Instead, he keeps going down this mythical rabbit hole of election issues because his base has bought into it and he needs traction with public opinion on this if he intends to take extreme measures that can suppress participation in November.”
Trump again pushed for passage of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill he’s made a focal point of his administration in recent months.
The SAVE America Act would require voters to show photo ID to cast their ballot, show documents proving their citizenship to register to vote, and curtail mail-in voting. The bill includes mail-in voting allowances for people on military deployment, travel, or who have an illness or disability that makes in-person voting difficult.
Trump said the SAVE America Act should be a bipartisan issue, and he said the only reason members of Congress wouldn’t want to support it is that they want to cheat in elections.
Burgat said the speech offered Trump a “bigger megaphone to turn a stalled congressional fight into a base-mobilizing demand.”
But Burgat said the SAVE America Act has low odds of becoming law before the midterms this fall.
Republicans may try to attach pieces of it to spending bills or move related grants through reconciliation, but the Senate filibuster, reconciliation rules, Democratic opposition, and even some GOP discomfort make full passage a very heavy lift, Burgat said.
If Democrats take either chamber, the SAVE America Act is effectively done for the next Congress, he said.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said the SAVE America Act would “create registration and voting chaos,” likely adversely affecting just as many Republican voters as Democratic voters.
“While there are some valid reasons to place more controls on voting by mail, where the potential of fraud is greatest, the SAVE Act proposals related to requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and to make any changes to your voter registration, such as an address change, would disenfranchise millions of Americans and require a significant financial and time commitment for those who are able to register, especially certain groups like the elderly and women who have adopted their husband’s surname,” Jones said via email.
Trump said the Homeland Security secretary will hold a briefing Friday to outline his department’s recent work concerning cybersecurity vulnerabilities regarding electronic voting systems.
And Trump said his administration is in the process of informing governors, senators and members of Congress of potential election integrity issues in their states.
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