u.s officials have said this
presidential election was
the most secure in american history
rejecting president donald trump's
repeated claims of
fraud here's what the cyber security and
infrastructure security agency said in
its statement
right now across the country election
officials are reviewing and double
checking the entire election process
prior to finalizing the result then in
clear bold font the statement goes on
there is no evidence that any voting
system deleted or lost
votes changed votes or was in any way
compromised it ends by saying we can
assure you we have the utmost confidence
in the security and integrity of our
elections and you should too
when you have questions turn to election
officials as
trusted voices while that attempt to
draw a line under theories of
fraud and conspiracy comes as china has
sent its congratulations
to the man it now calls president-elect
joe biden
here's our north america correspondent
peter bose
[Music]
the most secure election in american
history
the verdict from senior u.s election
officials
refuting the president's claims that
there was widespread voter fraud
a top committee overseen by the
department of homeland security
has concluded there's no case to answer
barack obama who campaigned alongside
joe biden his former deputy
has now added his voice to the growing
criticism of mr trump
over his false claims of election fraud
they appear to be motivated
in part because the president doesn't
like to
lose and never admits loss
i'm more troubled by the fact that other
republican officials who clearly know
better
are going along with this are humoring
him in this fashion it is one more step
in delegitimizing not just the incoming
biden administration but democracy
generally
and that's a dangerous path
senior democrats are urging the white
house to acknowledge joe biden's win
saying the president-elect should be
given access to the security briefings
that mr trump gets
every day the unease felt that mr
trump's continuing denial of the
election result
has prompted the elders a group of
senior world figures
founded by nelson mandela to condemn the
president's behavior
thank you the tragedy is that the united
states has always been
the supporter the strong advocate for
democracy and for adherence
to the will of the people when the votes
are counted
you you you accept that and so
we do see it as being you know serious
for the united states
in the short term but also very worrying
uh internationally because it's
obviously something that
autocrats and you know bad leaders are
rejoicing in they're just
laughing and they're saying who talks
about democracy look at the united
states
apart from playing golf last weekend and
one official engagement to mark veterans
day
donald trump has confined himself to the
white house since the election
venting his anger through social media
peter bowes bbc news
los angeles i'm joined now by cbs news
correspondent deborah alferone in
washington
debra mr trump isn't just tweeting is he
there are
legal challenges underway remind us
where he's at
with with the numerous challenges
yeah philippa there's about six
battleground states where he has
several like more than a dozen or so
challenges
to the election and and the thing is
that we're looking at these
and really they're interesting i'll tell
you about one of them there's a lawsuit
in pennsylvania
that says the voting there was
unconstitutional because it was a
two-tiered system
and the two tiers are walking in and
casting your ballot and
mailing it in so a lot of these things
are being thrown out there are still
some that are making their way through
the legal system
millions of dollars are being spent on
these lawsuits but at this point
you have to wonder the viability of
these legal challenges
and we're hearing also that there were
several
um people that advisers to the president
were telling cbs news that really
there's no viable legal point path at
this point to overturning the election
and that the president is coming around
to that
still he hasn't conceded we don't know
if he will
and that is um troubling to many people
perhaps it's not so much a legal
strategy as a political strategy
it keeps grievance anger perhaps loyalty
alive
well it's interesting that you say that
there is a lot of loyalty
regarding the president with the people
who he surrounds himself with and
certainly
republicans here are still backing the
president many of them not all of them
many of them think that joe biden the
president-elect should be receiving
those daily intelligence briefings
see that's the thing is that if he
doesn't receive those those briefings
what happens is he's going to be a
little bit more behind when he does take
office on january
20th and you know he's already been in
the white house he knows how the white
house goes he can do a lot of the stuff
that he needs to do without
that formal transition being signed off
on
but we are in a global pandemic there is
a vaccine that needs to get out to lots
of people
and if he's behind on understanding
what's going on with that and he doesn't
have access to these different
federal agencies you know that could be
an issue
and certainly we don't want anything to
get in the way of getting that out to
the people who need it especially when
we're in this global pandemic and the
numbers
are just rising and rising so it sounds
as if there are concerns that
the machinery of government is is
somewhat under threat from what looks
like quite a messy transition
well and also you know like you heard in
that earlier piece there um
former president barack obama was saying
you know this is an attack on democracy
really
uh there are many republicans who are
standing with the president
and saying that you know we need to let
these legal challenges continue their
way and certainly
that's what the law is there for let's
be let's be clear if you have something
that you want to want to bring to it
absolutely but also we're looking at
them and still not seeing that that
there is any widespread voter fraud
you know there's lots of different
things that the president is tweeting
about one about
either between tens of thousands of
votes and two million votes that could
have been
switched and there's just no evidence of
that at this point and even so
let's say there was and there's two
million votes we're still
not looking like that could overturn the
election so
you know you've got to wonder how long
this is going to play out and uh
we're just going to have to wait and see
we'll keep watching and waiting with you
deborah thanks very much