In a July 16 prime-time speech that warned of "shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure," President Donald Trump cast doubt on the country’s ability to hold "free and fair elections" but offered no evidence that widespread fraud had occurred. He made one reference to never watching "a stolen election again," but otherwise suggested, rather than outright claimed, that the 2020 election, which he lost, had been "rigged," as he has often said and has never backed up. Trump’s own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency concluded in 2020 that the election that year "was the most secure in American history," a line the president mocked in his speech last night. The White House released a trove of documents that Trump said showed the intelligence agencies had kept election vulnerabilities and foreign interference a secret, but election experts said there was very little new information revealed in the president’s speech. David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit, said in a July 17 press conference, "The White House promised a bombshell, and they delivered a dud." He added, "There was absolutely nothing here that was news, nothing here that even calls into question past elections and certainly not the 2020 election." Still, Trump distorted the facts on several issues. Trump said the documents he released show that China had acquired "220 million U.S. voter files" starting in the 2020 election cycle, and that this had been kept "secret" by U.S. intelligence officials. But state voter files are mostly publicly available, and an April 2020 intelligence assessment said Chinese officials were analyzing state voter rolls. The president said released documents revealed that U.S. election infrastructure is "vulnerable," "easily compromised" and "people within our government knew that." But one of the documents Trump cited said the election systems, for several reasons, "would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to alter the election outcome." Trump said the U.S. election system was "dangerously" exposed to "foreign interference." It has been publicly known for years that other countries have tried to influence elections. Trump focused on China; it was a "minority view" in an intelligence assessment that China had acted to undermine Trump’s reelection in 2020. The president’s speech may have suggested to some listeners that a foreign country changed votes in a U.S. election, but Trump never explicitly claimed that. John Solomon, an adviser to the president and a conservative journalist, told reporters outside the White House after Trump’s speech: "The Intelligence Community has zero evidence that someone, that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, ’22 or ’24." As for foreign influence campaigns, the Intelligence Community assessment on "foreign threats" to the 2020 election, which was given to Trump before he left office in January 2021, explained how Russia, Iran and other countries likely sought to influence the election. "We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US. Unlike in 2016, we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure. We have high confidence in our assessment," the Intelligence Community report said. Trump continued to claim without evidence that there are large numbers of noncitizens on voter registration rolls. "Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security," Trump said. "According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections." But the DHS document provided no information about how that estimate was derived, or the methodology used. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar provided a statement, saying, "We can affirm that on its face, we refute these claims. These numbers are wildly speculative at best, and the Department of Homeland Security has not shared anything that backs it up." Al Schmidt, the Republican secretary of the commonwealth in Pennsylvania, also pushed back on DHS’ claim. "Pennsylvania follows all state and federal laws when it comes to our elections, and our voter rolls are properly maintained and updated," Schmidt said in a statement to us via email. "In Pennsylvania, every voter must take steps to verify their identity before they cast a ballot, including providing proper identification every time they register to vote, vote by mail, or vote at a new polling place. All evidence has shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare across the country, including in Pennsylvania." Trump seized on an incident in which a city clerk in Muskegon, Michigan, received a number of fake voter-registration applications ahead of the 2020 election. But the applications did not actually result in anyone voting or registering to vote improperly, state officials have said. Trump, in his speech, accused the Biden administration of a coverup. "The FBI agents working on the case believe that crimes were committed, yet the Biden Department of Justice slow walked the investigation and killed it," he said. Documents released by the White House on Thursday include partially redacted exchanges between federal law enforcement officials about how to proceed with the case at various times, including a November 2021 email from an unidentified FBI agent pushing back on the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section’s decision not to prosecute. But the records also show that DOJ officials subsequently allowed the investigation to continue, and in 2023 approved a "full field investigation" that included interviews with canvassers. An FBI document dated September 2025, which was among the records released after Trump’s speech, states that the case was closed "because logical investigation and/or leads have been exhausted, and the investigation to date did not identify a criminal violation or a priority threat to national security." But it was unclear from the released documents when that decision was made. Trump pointed to California’s recent primary election as an example of a problem in the nation’s voting systems. "As one example of the insanity, California’s recent election for mayor of L.A. and governor was held on June 2 – long time ago. But it was just completed a few days ago on July 10," he said. "Think of that – much more than one month. Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing." California does take a long time to count its votes, but July 10 is not when the state completed its counting, but rather when it certified its election. Election certification, as the U.S. Election Assistance Commission explains, is "the process of election officials attesting that the election results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in a particular election." Beyond just counting, certification involves various audits and tests to ensure that the vote is accurate. By state law, California county election officials have 30 days to report their results to the secretary of state, who then must certify the results within another eight days. But county officials count and report on the vast majority of ballots within just 13 days, and news organizations are able to confidently call races well before that. Trump also pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, saying that the bill "requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that?" The bill requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote, he added. But it may not be that simple for some voters. Election experts say the bill would make it difficult for some to register and cast a vote. Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, told us earlier this year that the legislation wouldn’t meet the dictionary definition of "disenfranchise," which is to "deprive a person of the right to vote." But it would make registering and voting harder. "That extra hassle and expense would mean that some citizens eligible to register and vote will in practice not complete the needed process even though the bill does not take away their legal right to register or to vote." Trump also referred to an amendment to the bill that would eliminate universal voting by mail. "You would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel," he said. That’s more restrictive than the practice in the majority of states. Eight states and Washington, D.C., conduct their elections mostly by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Another 29 states allow "no-excuse" mail-in voting, which means that voters don’t need to provide a reason when requesting a mail-in ballot. Trump made the unfounded claim that mail-in ballots are "inherently corrupt." Election experts have told us that while fraud is slightly more prevalent with mail-in voting than in-person voting, it is still relatively rare, and there is no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud. Trump himself has voted several times by mail, including once earlier this year. Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our "Donate" page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
