International observers see 'no fraud in 'historic' US vote
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It started months before Election Day with false claims on Facebook and Twitter that mail-in ballots cast for President Donald Trump had been chucked in dumpsters or rivers.
Despite Donald Trump’s repeated expressions of doubt on the US election's voting system, International observers from the Organisation of American States say they saw no instances of fraud or voting irregularities in the US presidential election.
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Election experts say it would be nearly impossible for foreign actors to disrupt a US election.
It started months before Election Day with false claims on Facebook and Twitter that mail-in ballots cast for President Donald Trump had been chucked in dumpsters or rivers.
Trump’s supporters have readily echoed the president’s cries of an unfair election on Facebook and Twitter.
Tweets and retweets with terms such as “steal,” “fraud,” “rigged” and “dead” referring to the election spiked more than 2,800% from Nov. 2 to Nov. 6, according to an analysis by VineSight, a tech company that tracks misinformation. The company found more than 1.6 million retweets containing some of those words on Nov. 6 alone.
The OAS says the Election Day was peaceful, although there were efforts to intimidate poll workers as the votes were counted, and says the country’s mail-in ballots were a secure system.
Meanwhile, a week after the final polls closed, falsehoods about dead people voting and ballots being thrown out by poll workers are still thriving on social media, reaching an audience of millions.
False or misleading claims of electoral fraud are going viral on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Yesterday, asked for his view on President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the election, Joe Biden said: “I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly. I think it will not help the president’s legacy.
“I think that the whole Republican Party has been put in a position – with a few notable exceptions – of being mildly intimidated by the sitting president.”
He continued: “I understand the sense of loss. I get that. But I think the majority of the people who voted for the president…I think they understand that we have to come together.”
(With inputs from agencies)