Within the week earlier than Election Day, former President Donald Trump repeatedly instructed his supporters that voter fraud and dishonest is going on in Pennsylvania.
“Pennsylvania is dishonest, and getting caught, at giant scale ranges hardly ever seen earlier than,” Trump posted Oct. 30 on Fact Social. “REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Regulation Enforcement should act, NOW!”
Regulation enforcement officers introduced days earlier that they have been investigating suspect voter fraud registrations in Lancaster County — a probe Trump dramatized as fraudulent ballots forged within the election.
Trump, who has spent years spreading falsehoods about voting, could have the loudest megaphone on social media. However he’s not the one individual spreading baseless claims of dishonest within the Keystone State.
Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, probably the most of any battleground state, and is below intense scrutiny within the shut presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Its election processes have been a supply of a number of false claims unfold by Trump or on social media beginning about two weeks earlier than Election Day. The falsehoods goal individuals making an attempt to vote, native election officers and vote counting processes, elevating doubts amongst voters.
Pennsylvania election officers say voting is safe, and say some voter registration types being below investigation alerts that the system to forestall fraud is working.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt stated Oct. 31 that native, nonpartisan election officers are taking a number of steps to make sure a safe election, resembling verifying the eligibility of people that apply to register to vote and that each returned mail poll is from a registered voter. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, nominated Schmidt, a Republican, to the highest elections place in 2023.
Voting rights advocates celebrated turnout to date, greater than 1.7 million as of noon Nov. 2, however lamented the spreading of falsehoods. Because the 2020 election confirmed, a confluence of things creates a fertile floor for election misinformation within the state. For one, state regulation bans officers from processing mail ballots till Election Day, which might result in slower outcomes than some states that begin counting weeks earlier.
“The tight nature of the race within the state with the biggest electoral prize in play, together with a really numerous array of electoral administration procedures and guidelines that restrict pre-canvassing of mail ballots make the commonwealth ripe for efforts to unfold inaccurate data,” stated Christopher P. Borick, a political science professor and director of the Muhlenberg School Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania “has all of the components in place to make it the epicenter of misinformation on this electoral cycle.”
Nationwide as of Nov. 2, there are about 200 pending election-related lawsuits, together with 20 in Pennsylvania. A decide sided with a Trump marketing campaign lawsuit in search of to increase the deadline for mail-in voting in Bucks County, the place there had been lengthy strains on the final day to return ballots.
For the reason that commonwealth may determine who wins the presidency, “some dangerous actors try to sow doubt to contest the election if it would not go their means,” Philip Hensley-Robin, Frequent Trigger in Pennsylvania govt director, stated.
Right here’s a take a look at our fact-checks of falsehoods and exaggerations in Pennsylvania.
Election employees usually are not ripping up ballots, swaying outcomes
Native election officers from each events have tried to debunk a video publish that stated an election employee was ripping up ballots forged for Trump in Bucks County. We rated that video Pants on Fireplace.
Federal officers stated Russian actors manufactured and amplified the video.
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Voter registration purposes — not ballots — below investigation
On his Fact Social platform Oct. 31, Trump wrote that his marketing campaign “caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania.” Trump didn’t clarify what he was referring to, however days earlier Lancaster County officers stated they have been investigating 2,600 suspect voter registration purposes.
An preliminary assertion by the county stated it was investigating “ballots,” however a county spokesperson stated that was a mistake, and subsequent statements stated the elections workplace was investigating voter registration purposes.
An software to register to vote is a request from an individual to be added to the voter rolls; it’s not the identical doc as a poll on which a voter selects candidates.
Trump twisted the investigation and falsely stated at an Allentown rally, “We caught them with 2,600 votes. … And each vote was written by the identical individual.”
Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican, stated Oct. 31 on CNN that “a number of hundred” purposes have been decided to be fraudulent and that the investigation continued.
“Election employees are doing their job,” D’Agostino stated. “This was detected, it was stopped.”
Republican officers might be efficient in countering falsehoods from fellow Republicans, however different Republican leaders are nonetheless sharing some disinformation, stated Shannon C. McGregor, principal investigator on the Middle for Info, Know-how, and Public Life on the College of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Pennsylvania Lawyer Normal Michelle Henry, a Democrat, stated in an Oct. 31 assertion, “Obvious makes an attempt to submit fraudulent voter registration types in Berks, Lancaster, Monroe, and York counties have been defeated.”
The info about what’s or isn’t occurring in strains
Social media customers falsely claimed buses of noncitizens are being despatched to polling areas to sway the election for Harris. Elon Musk, a frequent spreader of election and immigration falsehoods this 12 months, amplified the falsehood. Solely U.S. residents can vote in federal elections.
In Allegheny County, a viral video captured a short dialog between a gaggle of voters, their translators and an area election official at a polling location. The voters within the video have been at a polling heart to use for mail-in ballots. The older and disabled voters have been allowed to take a seat, moderately than stand in line, as their purposes have been processed, which is customary process, the county stated.
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In Delaware County, social media posts misled a few Republican lady at a voter service heart. Some posts amplified by Republican Nationwide Committee Chair Michael Whatley and Trump left viewers with the impression that the lady was handcuffed and requested to go away the middle as a result of she was telling voters to remain in line.
The county stated some individuals complained that the lady, who was on the heart’s foyer for 2 hours, was repeatedly approaching voters. The county stated she was “briefly detained and issued a quotation for disorderly conduct.”
State regulation permits voters to go to election workplaces and apply for and obtain a mail poll and forged it proper there. This created lengthy strains in Bucks County. The Related Press discovered that some voters selected the in-person methodology due to Trump’s messages about voting.
“As a result of he instructed us to vote early. I used to be simply making an attempt to make it ‘too large to rig,’” stated Marlene Burns, repeating one among Trump’s speaking factors encouraging his supporters to vote.
The Trump marketing campaign sued and a decide dominated to increase the deadline till the shut of enterprise Nov. 1. Sara Rose, the deputy authorized director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, stated the lawsuit was “legitimate.” She talked to a voter who stated cops wouldn’t let him get into the road at 3 p.m. on Oct. 29 although that was two hours earlier than the deadline.
There usually are not 180,000 Amish on the voter rolls
Social media customers unfold the falsehood that there have been “180,000 registered New Amish voters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”
That was mathematically unimaginable. Lancaster County has 366,000 registered voters as of Oct. 28, state data present. About 38,000 Amish individuals reside within the county, in response to the most recent inhabitants depend taken in early summer time 2024 and shared with PolitiFact by Steven Nolt, a professor and director of the Younger Middle for Anabaptist and Pietist Research at Elizabethtown School.
Of the 38,000 Amish residents, greater than half are youthful than 18, thus ineligible to vote.
Ready days for election outcomes will not be an indication of nefarious exercise
A Threads publish falsely stated that the truth that election officers in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan stated they gained’t know outcomes on election night time is an indication of “dishonest.” It’s not. In 2020, the result of Pennsylvania was not clear till Saturday as a result of it took time to depend mail ballots.
All states have legal guidelines that set deadlines to depend ballots. Media shops challenge winners based mostly on their very own methodologies and if the margin is huge, that may happen on election night time. However in Pennsylvania, the margin could possibly be shut.
Seizing on media errors
WNEP-TV, an ABC Information affiliate in Moosic, Pennsylvania, by chance aired check 2024 presidential election ends in October that confirmed Harris successful over Trump. However the outcomes weren’t actual, nor have been they proof of election interference.
WNEP printed an Oct. 27 assertion on its web site explaining that election check outcomes have been mistakenly proven on air.
This additionally occurred with different TV stations in the course of the 2020 election.
This story could also be up to date with further fact-checks. PolitiFact Employees Writers Sara Swann, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu and Loreben Tuquero and Contributing Author Ciara O’Rourke contributed to this text.
RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Pennsylvania
