Trump Pushes Dangerous New Voter Fraud Claims About Key Swing State
Donald Trump can’t even lie about fake votes correctly.
Donald Trump is once again exaggerating conspiracy theories about Democrats committing voter fraud into existence.
During a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Thursday night, Trump claimed that there had been “bad votes” discovered in York County and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a key battleground state where early voting has indicated that Trump isn’t doing too well.
Trump claimed that in Lancaster County, “there were 2,600 votes that happened to be written by the same pen, same hand, same signature, same everything. Uhhhh maybe there’s an explanation for that? Two thousand six hundred votes!”
There is an explanation for that, actually, which is that it’s a lie. Lancaster County didn’t discover thousands of fraudulent votes, but flagged a batch of voter registration forms for review.
Last week, the county flagged around 2,500 voter registration forms for issues, including fake names, dubious signatures, inaccurate addresses and social security information, and other worrying details including suspicious handwriting, according to the Associated Press. Not only were the forms not ballots, but there was no evidence to suggest that they were all written by the same person.
Of the voter registration forms investigated, around three out of five had problems, according to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams, who said Thursday her office was still actively investigating the issue.
This isn’t the first time Trump has attempted to place Lancaster’s investigation at the center of his bogus claims of voter fraud. The former president posted on Truth Social Monday that Lancaster County had been “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.”
By Wednesday, he was full-on raging over his fake version of the story. “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” he wrote. “REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!”
York County has also received suspicious voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications, according to ABC News. The county had received the forms as part of a large delivery of election materials from a third-party organization Field+Media Corps, which was acting on behalf of the Everybody Votes Campaign, according to County Commissioner Julie Wheeler. The documents are now under review, and if officials discover fraud, the forms will be fully investigated by the district attorney, Wheeler said.
Both Lancaster County and York County supported Trump in the 2020 election.
As Election Day approaches, and likely for many weeks after, Trump is sure to continue exaggerating to the point of invention as he attempts to undermine the integrity of the election.