The mid-term elections will be "the safest election we have ever had"

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristjen Nielsen said on Friday that the next mid-term vote would be "the safest election we have ever had".

"To date, there is no indication that a foreign government is making sustained efforts to hack into our electoral infrastructure," Nielsen told the Council on Foreign Relations. She did not explain in detail how the administration was better prepared for the 2018 elections than the previous elections.

Nielsen's statements come Friday after weeks of uncertainty over the Trump administration's actions following the 2016 presidential election to prevent foreign influence campaigns and third-party attacks on the infrastructure system American vote. Senior DHS officials had previously told the Daily Beast that the ministry was behind in its plans to counter foreign interference, saying that there had been only one meeting at this subject with the National Security Council.

Since then, the ministry has issued a report stating that, although the administration is concerned about attempts by foreigners to alter the election results, no disruption of the infrastructure likely to prevent voters from voting or changing the count of votes has been found.

"That's not to say that we should not access voting systems," said John Cohen, former under-secretary of intelligence and analysis at DHS. "These things are fluid. The fact that today the ministry does not see something that will change things does not mean they will not come at election time. Basically, they do not know what they do not know.

Despite his statements at the summit of the meeting, Nielsen later said that there had been attempts to access the US voting infrastructure in some states, but that there was no need for it. administration had not made the determination for these actors to be linked to a foreign government.

"My biggest concern is that a foreign entity seize the opportunity, after the elections or the night of the elections, to try to sow discord on social media by suggesting that something has not happened. worked as it should, "said Nielsen. "We must not jump to conclusions as Americans. We just need to pause the night of the elections and not jump to conclusions. "