There was no evidence that a "foreign actor" had compromised votes in the 2020 presidential election, acting US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf has said. "We face a multitude of foreign interference threats against our election infrastructure. We know that our foreign adversaries, including China, Iran and Russia, would like nothing more than to manipulate our democratic process for their own benefit,” he said.
But let me be clear: our election infrastructure is resilient and we have no indications that a foreign actor has succeeded in compromising or affecting the actual votes cast in this election," Xinhua news agency quoted Wolf as saying at a press conference on Election Day on Tuesday. The remarks came as Americans headed to polling stations across the country for Election Day voting to decide the next president between sitting President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Vice President Joe Biden.
Besides the presidential race, all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate were in the fray on Tuesday. More than a dozen state and territorial governorships, among many other state and local posts, are also being contested.
Millions of voters braved the COVID-19 pandemic concerns and occasional long lines on Tuesday to vote in the elections to choose between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Those who turned out in person joined 102 million fellow Americans who voted days or weeks earlier, a record number that represented 73% of the total vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden have opened the American presidential election results night with predictable victories and are locked in an edge of the seat battle in all important Florida, where at least 90% of the votes are in.
The electoral vote tally as of 9 pm EST (7.30 am IST) is Biden 80 and Trump 48. To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes.