Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump watches a campaign event at Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center in Drexel Mountain, Pennsylvania, United States, October 29, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday made baseless claims that “cheating” was occurring “on a massive scale” in Pennsylvania, escalating his campaign to spread election fraud conspiracies in the crucial battleground state.
The Republican presidential candidate’s “Truth Society” posts in the final week of the campaign dovetail with a broader Republican effort to cast doubt on the integrity of Pennsylvania’s election.
The efforts are similar to what Trump and his allies claimed before the 2020 presidential election. Trump subsequently lost Pennsylvania to President Joe Biden by 81,000 votes.
Now, with polls showing Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris locked in a stalemate in the Keystone State, Republicans appear to be laying the groundwork to challenge the election results again.
As in 2020, Trump’s strategy in Pennsylvania includes exaggerating and mischaracterizing any irregularities in the state’s elections to support widespread fraud.
“Cheating is happening and being caught in Pennsylvania on a scale never seen before. Report the cheating to the authorities. Law enforcement must act immediately!” Trump wrote in a “Truth Society” post on Wednesday morning .
Two days ago, Trump lied lancaster county “Fake ballots and forms” were “caught” — though officials there did not claim any potentially fraudulent material was actually ballots.
The county said it is investigating as many as 2,500 voter registration applications submitted around the state’s registration deadline. There are nearly 366,000 registered voters in Lancaster County.
In the same post, Trump also claimed that another region of the state, York County, had also “received thousands of potentially fraudulent voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications from third-party groups.”
“Really bad ‘stuff.’ What happened in Pennsylvania?” Trump wrote.
On October 29, 2024, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the last day of early voting, Philadelphia residents lined up around City Hall waiting to vote.
Matthew Hatcher | AFP | Getty Images
“It’s not unusual to receive a large number of requests for voter registration or a large number of mail-in ballots,” said York County Commissioner Julie Wheeler, a local news outlet. Fox 43 reported on Monday.
“It’s just that there are too many registrations for one particular organization,” Wheeler said.
Actual voter fraud is rare, election experts say. Pennsylvania’s top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Al Schmidt, told CBS News on Sunday that the federal government has taken additional steps to strengthen election security 2024.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump and Republicans from sounding the alarm about the state’s election operations.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said on Monday that the commonwealth is under “voter suppression Start from the left. handcuffed in Delaware County.
On the same day, Republican National Committee lawyer Linda Kerns sent a Letter to Schmidtflagging reports of what it called “widespread election administration issues,” including voters being told “computers were turned off.”
The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and a group affiliated with Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick filed a lawsuit in Bucks County on Tuesday, accusing the county of “turning away voters.”
However, Bucks County government has pushed back against accusations that voters who lined up to mail in their ballots were being turned away.
Trump further pushed his case for Lancaster County at a campaign rally in Allentown, Pa., on Tuesday night.
“So if you have a ballot in the mail, please send that damn ballot in right away because, because they’ve already started cheating in Lancaster, they’ve already cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes,” Trump said.
The former president has repeatedly urged law enforcement to take action. But Schmidt said in an election update on Tuesday that the investigation is already underway.
The Republican official said the federal government is in contact with York and Lancaster counties “to provide them with guidance as they conduct their investigations and will continue to provide support as needed.”
“Ultimately, the county elections office and the investigating law enforcement agency will determine whether any criminal charges are warranted.”
Before the 2020 election, Trump also repeatedly spread false fraud claims about Pennsylvania.
He claimed in October 2020 that “thousands of ballots” bearing his name were “thrown in the trash” and “in the trash can.”
In fact, officials stated at the time that it was just nine votes Seven of them were improperly discarded in Luzerne County and were labeled Trump.
Pennsylvania voters are bombarded with political ads and messages in the lead-up to Election Day, creating an environment ripe for the spread of misinformation.
For example, a fake video showing someone tearing up ballots in Pennsylvania recently went viral on social media.
Federal agencies warned Friday that the video was produced by russian actor.
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