Trump revisits election security claims, declassifies documents

President Trump delivered a primetime address Thursday, reiterating his long-held claims that the U.S. election system is "catastrophically short." The White House concurrently released declassified documents concerning election security, though a White House official acknowledged the information did not allege vote switching or hacked machines.

Trump and his allies have consistently, and falsely, claimed the 2020 election was stolen due to widespread fraud. During his speech, he urged lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, a package of proposed election law changes including proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration. This legislation faces skepticism from some Senate Republicans, while Democrats criticized the speech as an attempt to undermine elections.

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This administration has been in total control of the federal government for 18 months. They've redirected untold taxpayer resources to try to uncover evidence of massive voter fraud. And at the end of that 18 months, all we got is more rehashed, debunked conspiracy theories, many of which we've known about before and already knew didn't affect our elections.

David Becker, executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research, commented that the administration's efforts to find evidence of massive voter fraud over 18 months yielded only "rehashed, debunked conspiracy theories." He noted that voter registration data in the U.S. is largely public, with some states posting it online and others allowing requests, though certain personal details remain confidential.

One notable allegation from Trump was that the Chinese government acquired 220 million U.S. voter registration files between 2020 and 2023, which he termed "the largest compromise of election data in history." He claimed intelligence agencies kept this information secret. However, Becker explained that such voter files are public and accessing them does not necessarily enable fraud. A 2020 intelligence report, declassified nearly four years ago, had found China obtained voter data from multiple states for "public opinion analysis" on the 2020 U.S. general election.

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It sounds bad when you hear about it. The reality is: voter files in the United States are public.