FBI Director Christopher Wray responded to a question on the security of mail-in voting to the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday by saying that the agency has "not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."
Why it matters: President Trump has ramped up his claims, without evidence, that widespread mail-in voting would rig the 2020 election against him. On Wednesday, after declining to say whether he would commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election to Joe Biden, Trump said that "the ballots are out of control."
What he's saying: Wray noted that the agency had seen local election fraud "from time to time" and that the agency takes election threats seriously, which he said includes potential threats through mailed ballots.
- "Certainly to change a federal election outcome by mounting that kind of fraud at scale would be a major challenge for an adversary," Wray said, adding that the FBI would "investigate seriously" any issue with widespread fraud by mail.