Donald Trump has seized on isolated irregularities caught by US election officials to claim “cheating” has occurred, amplifying expectations that he will again reject results if he loses next week’s vote.
The Republican candidate has consistently declined to commit to accepting the result of the November 5 election, setting the stage for a repeat performance around the unfounded claim that his 2020 loss to Joe Biden was rigged.
On Wednesday, Trump denounced what he said was “cheating” at “large-scale levels never seen before” in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.
That followed a post from the day prior in which he claimed that “really bad ‘stuff'” was occurring in the state, saying “Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!!”
Last Friday, officials in one Pennsylvania county announced that they had launched a criminal investigation into a batch of up to 2,500 voter registration applications that had been caught in routine screening.
The county’s district attorney, Heather Adams, said the applications had been organized by an outside group as part of a “large-scale canvassing operation.”
The revelation has reportedly prompted probes in other counties.
Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor, told CNN Tuesday night that the allegations are “more of the same” from Trump, who repeatedly tried and failed to overturn his loss to Biden.
Pennsylvania, which Trump lost by some 80,000 votes to Biden, is once again among the handful of battlegrounds expected to decide the outcome of the national race.
Polls show Trump in a statistical tie with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the state.
“I understand that Donald Trump wants to again use the same playbook where he tries to create chaos and stoke division and fear about our system,” Shapiro said.
“But again, we will have a free and fair, safe, and secure election in Pennsylvania, and the will of the people will be respected and protected,” he added.
When Trump lost in 2020, a mob of his supporters inflamed by his claims of fraud attacked the US Capitol in a violent attempt to keep him in power, and he still baselessly claims to have won that election.
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