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US President Donald Trump has once again made a big and shocking claim regarding cyber attacks. Trump says that foreign powers like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea and some non-governmental groups have the full ability to influence the American election process through cyber attacks. He has expressed apprehension that the results could be tampered with by breaking into the country’s digital election system. After this statement of Trump, a debate has erupted on the global stage regarding the security of America’s electoral system. However, detailed reports by the ‘Associated Press’ (AP) and top election experts clearly state that America’s election system is one of the most complex, decentralized and impenetrable systems in the world. In such a situation, it is important to understand how the American election system works and what are the security arrangements in it.
Why is America’s election system impossible to hack?
According to the report of the Associated Press, the election process in America is not conducted by any one Central Election Commission like India or other countries. Elections across America rather than any one institution Over 10,000 independent and separate local constituencies (Local Jurisdiction).
Under the US Constitution, states have full right to conduct elections in their own way. Although the US Congress (Parliament) can set some basic rules, the entire responsibility from selection to counting of voting machines rests entirely on the shoulders of states and local election officials. This is the reason that there is no centralized digital system in the entire country which can be hacked together and change the results. Every region has its own separate offline structure.
Three-layer security system to prevent voter fraud
The chances of voter fraud in the American election system are negligible, and even if someone tries to do so, he is immediately caught. Violating election rules is considered a very serious and non-bailable offense under US law.
The main security points are as follows:
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Strict legal action: Voting more than once, casting a fraudulent vote in the name of another dead or living person, tampering with ballot paper or providing false documentation are federal crimes punishable by heavy fines and lengthy prison sentences.
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Strict identity verification: In most states, a valid photo ID is asked while voting at the polling booth.
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Mail-in Ballot Security: To double the security in voting through mail-in ballot, very complex and additional legal processes like signature verification, testimony of official witnesses or notarization are adopted.
What do official figures say on claims of 2020 election theft?
Donald Trump has consistently made public claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through a massive fraud. To find out the ground reality of this claim, the Associated Press conducted a detailed review of every possible and suspected case of voter fraud in the six most major swing states disputed by Trump in 2021.
This in-depth investigation found that in total, less than 475 cases of irregularities were reported in these states, which were not even enough to change the final outcome of the election. All these legal allegations of Trump of large-scale election rigging were rejected outright by many provincial and federal courts of America, state election officials and even the Trump government’s own ‘Department of Homeland Security’. During that time, the then US Attorney General William Barr, appointed by Trump, had also publicly clarified that the investigation had not found any concrete evidence that could influence the 2020 election results.
China angry over Trump’s allegations, says “baseless and fabricated”
China has given a very strong and aggressive reaction to the allegations of cyber intrusion made by Donald Trump in his address to the nation. According to AP report, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson Lin Jian clearly said during a press briefing held in Beijing that China has never interfered in America’s internal affairs or its elections in any way, nor does it have any such intention in the future.
Spokeswoman Lin Jian called Trump’s claims “completely fabricated, politically motivated and baseless.” Giving advice to Washington, he appealed that America should immediately stop dragging China’s name into its domestic politics and electoral conflicts and instead work towards improving the bilateral relations of the two superpowers in a constructive manner.