PHILADELPHIA — Donald Trump is turning Pennsylvania into ground zero for preemptive claims of a rigged election.
When voters in Bucks County, a key suburb outside Philadelphia, faced long lines and early cutoffs while trying to request and cast mail ballots in person, Trump aides and allies not only successfully sued to extend the on-demand voting period, but also seized on it as evidence of voter suppression and intimidation.
When Lancaster County said it was reviewing voter registration applications for possible fraud, Trump falsely claimed that there were thousands of “fake ballots.” York County said it had received thousands of voter materials it was reviewing — which, Trump said, were “THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT applications.”
If Trump loses the state, these are the bricks that could make up the foundation of his attempts to overturn that loss.
“Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” Trump posted without evidence to his social media site Wednesday morning. And he continued Thursday: “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania. Must announce and PROSECUTE, NOW!,” he posted. “Who would have ever thought that our Country is so CORRUPT?”
Both Democratic and Republican Pennsylvania election officials said the election is safe and secure. But for Trump and his allies, every incident, no matter how big or small, real or perceived, is evidence of a plot to rig the vote in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
In these final days before Election Day, they are blowing up allegations of malfeasance, administrative mistakes by election officials and claims of error in Pennsylvania into five-alarm fires. It’s not just that they’re raising concerns — and scoring some victories in court — as both parties have done for decades. It’s that Trump holds them up as preemptive proof the election is rigged against him.
“Our election integrity team has been notified of legitimate instances of voter fraud and voter suppression by real voters on the ground,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “While the media labels these examples as conspiracy theories, Team Trump and the [Republican National Committee] are taking every allegation seriously to ensure a safe and secure election for ALL Americans, regardless of who they are voting for.”
That waterfall of allegations in Pennsylvania in recent days builds upon years of Trump undermining trust in elections. Following the 2020 election the former president and his allies sowed chaos in Pennsylvania, a focal point of his attempt to retain control of the White House. He and his allies unleashed a torrent of misinformation about the state’s election; asked the Supreme Court to throw out its results; and orchestrated a slate of fake electors, even after some original electors in the state balked at the plan.
Local election officials became the subject of threats, abuse and harassment — and some, including in Philadelphia, had to have police protection. Two men were arrested on gun charges outside Philadelphia’s vote counting site after driving up from Virginia.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt — a Republican — in a press briefing Wednesday called the heated rhetoric an effort to “manufacture outrage,” and pointed to high levels of misinformation around voting in the state, without naming names.
Yeah there was much bitching about fraud happening in Philly early on election night. But those complains mysteriously disappeared later without explanation.
