Donald Trump is stoking fears of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state which experts believe could decide the presidential race, after authorities in two counties flagged thousands of potentially fraudulent voter registration applications.
These are similar claims to the ones he made in 2020 after Joe Biden was declared winner of the presidential race, and they suggest that Trump’s campaign might once again be getting ready to cry foul play should he be defeated by Kamala Harris on November 5.
Newsweek contacted Trump’s 2024 campaign for comment by email on Thursday early morning.
This is what we know about what’s going on in the two Pennsylvania counties where thousands of forms are being reviewed over suspected irregularities.
Philadelphia residents wait in a line around city hall to cast their ballot on the last day of early voting, October 29, 2024. Donald Trump is already crying foul play in Pennsylvania, the key battleground state.
MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images
What We Know
Last week, officials in Lancaster County announced that they were reviewing two batches of roughly 2,500 voter registration forms turned in before the registration deadline over signs of potential fraud. Not all forms showed signs of potential fraud, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, but all were being reviewed by officials.
In their latest update on the investigation, the Lancaster County District Attorney’s office said that county detectives working through the weekend to review the suspicious materials found hundreds more forms which could not be verified because the information provided in them couldn’t be matched with any police record or public source database.
According to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams, her team found that about 60 percent of the 2,500 forms were potentially illegitimate.
During the same week, officials reported that York County was also investigating potential application irregularities after receiving a large batch of thousands of election-related materials from a third party organization.
In a statement reported by the York Daily Record, York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler said that these materials included voter registration applications and mail-in ballot forms.
“As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal. That process is currently underway,” Wheeler said. “If suspected fraud is identified, we will alert the District Attorney’s Office, which will then conduct an investigation. We will have no further comment until our internal review has been completed.”
What We Don’t Know
In Lancaster County, what we don’t know, as of yet, is who’s behind the submission of the potentially fraudulent voter registration forms. Officials said that the suspicious forms were all handed in by the same paid canvassing group, but failed to name it.
Adams said that her office will continue investigating who is responsible for the fraudulent materials and will file “all applicable charges” once they find evidence to do so. “We are actively investigating who is responsible for this, and any speculation at this point is premature,” she said, according to ABC27.
In York County as well, officials said the suspicious forms and mail-in applications were all dropped by one group which they did not name.
Stoking Fears of Voter Fraud
While officials in both counties are yet to come to a conclusion over whether they received some fraudulent voter registration application forms, Trump launched several false claims earlier this week about the two counties engaging in widespread voter fraud.
On Monday, the Republican presidential candidate wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that Lancaster County was being “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The same explosive social media post alleged that York County had received “THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group.”
During a news conference in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, Trump alleged that “there are some bad spots in Pennsylvania, where some serious things have been caught or are in the process of being caught.”
The day after, the former president posted on Truth Social that Pennsylvania was “cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before.”
In 2020, both Lancaster and York counties saw an overwhelming Trump victory.
While the review of the suspicious registration forms continues in the two counties, Democrats have warned that Trump is using the investigations as evidence that something might be wrong with the election process in Pennsylvania, preparing the ground to challenge his potential defeat in the state.
Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, who was being considered as a potential running mate for Kamala Harris before she decided on Tim Walz, wrote on X that Trump is using “the same playbook” he did in 2020 to “stoke chaos” over the election.
“Let’s remember, in 2020, Donald Trump attacked our elections over and over. I was the Attorney General back then and despite his bluster and rhetoric, he went 0-43 in court when he fought to make it harder to vote and then tried to overturn Pennsylvanians’ votes,” said Shapiro.
“He’s now trying to use the same playbook to stoke chaos, but hear me on this: we will again have a free and fair, safe and secure election—and the will of the people will be respected.”
The Democratic governor stressed that if the two counties are reviewing the forms it is because they “are doing their jobs here in Pennsylvania—and together with law enforcement, they’re making sure only eligible voters are able to register and vote.”
