Trump’s fraud claims revive fears of attempt to overturn election results

False claims about voter fraud in Pennsylvania have raised concerns that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may once again seek to overturn the vote there or in other battleground states likely to determine the winner next Tuesday.

Opinion polls, both nationally and in the seven closely divided states, show Trump locked in a tight race with Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris with four days to go.

Trump continues to falsely claim his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud in multiple states, while he and his supporters have spread baseless claims about this election in Pennsylvania.

A similar rhetoric about voter fraud after the 2020 vote led to a violent mob of Trump supporters attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to halt or sway the congressional count of the electoral votes that determine who becomes president.

“This is sowing the seeds for attempts to overturn an election result that cuts against Donald Trump,” said Kyle Miller, a Pennsylvania policy strategist for an advocacy group. “We saw it in 2020 and I think the lesson Trump and his allies have learned since is that they have to sow these ideas early.”

Trump on Thursday stepped up his unfounded allegations that probes into suspect voter registration forms were proof of voter fraud. Some of his supporters alleged voter suppression when long lines formed this week to receive mail-in ballots.

State officials and democracy advocates said the incidents showed a system working as intended. A judge extended the mail-in ballot deadline by three days in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, after the former US president’s campaign sued over claims that some voters were turned away before a Tuesday deadline.

“The built-in safeguards in our voter registration process are working,” Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top elections official, told reporters this week.

Trump said he could only envision losing “if it was a corrupt election.” His claims have raised concerns that he is preparing to again blame a potential loss in Pennsylvania, the largest of the seven states likely to decide the result of the election, on voter fraud.

In a social media post on Thursday, he said: “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania” and demanded criminal prosecutions.

A senior Harris campaign official on Thursday said Trump’s claims were an example of the former president trying to “sow doubt in our elections and institutions when he’s afraid he can’t win.”