Trump highlights election integrity threats, accuses China of meddling

(The Center Square) – In a primetime address Thursday, President Donald Trump highlighted the need for election integrity while accusing China of meddling in U.S. elections, citing over a dozen states that he said have been compromised.

Trump began his address by touting the achievements of his administration, citing the economy, lowered prescription drugs, Trump RX, Trump Accounts, the border and the conflict in Iran before leading into a litany of allegations of potential voter meddling.

During his 25-minute address, the president made several allegations against China and its involvement in U.S. elections, announcing the declassification of evidence his administration claims reveals election vulnerabilities.

“Tonight, I’m announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure,” Trump said.

The president claims his administration gathered evidence that exposed “hacking, exploration, and foreign interference.”

As part of the documentation, Trump says his administration has released documents surrounding China’s involvement in the 2020 election, describing it as the “largest compromise of election data in history,” adding that it led to “China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.”

“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,” said the president.

“This data loss presents on unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence event shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project, compounding the travesty.”

Among the evidence, Trump claims China engaged in election meddling, accusing China of compromising “tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states have been bought, stolen, or hacked by China.”

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“Starting during the 2020 election cycle, China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history,” Trump said during his address.

The president says the CIA obtained information pointing to China’s meddling in U.S. elections, claiming, “for many years Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including voting machines and ballot county systems.”

He also accused the "deep state" within the federal government of burying the evidence.

In addition, Trump cited that the Department of Homeland Security found that approximately 278,000 non-citizens “are registered to vote in federal elections,” adding, “since Democrat states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that.”

Trump warned that “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, manipulation and corruption.”

He added that “hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, any yet we still have elections with no voter ID, proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”

Trump also announced that the secretary of Homeland Security will hold a briefing Friday to “outline his department’s recent work confirming cyber vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems.”

The president concluded his address with a push for passage of the Save America Act, calling on Americans to pressure their members of Congress to approve the landmark legislation that would require voter ID and curb mail-in ballots.