With just days till the election both Democrats and Republicans assert is the most consequential in decades, the fight for the critical swing-state of Pennsylvania is heating up, with claims of fraud at the center.
Pennsylvania’s Electoral College vote —19 — is the largest of all the battleground states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania by only 40,000 votes — a half percentage point. In 2020, it was the Pennsylvania vote that clinched the election for Joe Biden.
Trump makes claims of PA fraud as both candidates campaign
In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump spent more time campaigning in Pennsylvania than in any other state. Harris has repeatedly emphasized in Philadelphia and its suburbs that she’s fighting for every vote, while Trump, as in 2016 and 2020, has called Pennsylvania the most untrustworthy state for ballots, claiming widespread fraud.
Trump continues to claim — without evidence — that Pennsylvania voters are “cheating,” reiterating the assertion in Allentown at a rally on Oct. 29 where he told supporters “They already started cheating,” without citing who “they” are.
The Inquirer reported that in Philly suburb Drexel Hill, “Trump falsely claimed Lancaster County found 2,600 fake voter registrations. Earlier in the day during a campaign event in Florida, he falsely claimed the county encountered ‘fake ballots.’”
Then on Oct. 30, on his Truth Social social media site, Trump wrote that “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught.” He did not cite any specifics of this alleged voter fraud. But the claims prompted Gov. Josh Shapiro to say in an interview on CNN on Oct. 29, “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.”
Shapiro also said that when he was Attorney General, he examined and defeated 43 challenges to Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results from Trump and other GOP supporters.
Schmidt debunks fraud claims in multiple venues
Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt has debunked all fraud claims. He said that a video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Bucks County was debunked within hours after being reported by local election officials and law enforcement.
“Disinformation like that video can do great harm in undermining voters’ confidence in election results and discouraging people from participating,” Schmidt said. “That is, after all, the whole point of such disinformation and election lies.”
In a post on X that received over 1 million views in just a few hours, Trump wrote Oct. 29, “Wow! York County, Pennsylvania, received THOUSANDS of potentially FRUADULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group.”
He went on to describe it as “Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA??? Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!! WOW!!!” he continued.
Schmidt said that all accusations of voter fraud would be investigated. CNN reported Oct.30 that Schmidt, a Republican, acknowledged the ongoing investigations in York and Lancaster in a video briefing Tuesday.
“The department has been in touch with these counties from the very beginning to provide guidance to them as they conduct their investigations and will continue to support them as needed,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt had said Oct. 27 that Pennsylvania is “not susceptible to any sort of widespread voter fraud,” and he said officials are preparing with heightened security to combat threats to the vote in Pennsylvania.
“Time and time again, in many dozens of cases in 2020, every one of those cases upheld that our elections were accurate and that we’re not susceptible to any sort of widespread voter fraud or anything like that,” Schmidt told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Schmidt, who was previously the Philadelphia election commissioner, said in 2020 officials had to “scramble to figure out when threats were incoming,” while outlining the changes put in place since then, including an election threat task force made up of federal, state and local law enforcement partners and election administration.
“So that if any of the ugliness returns that we experienced in 2020, everyone will be ready,” Schmidt said.
Trump files suit, RNC goes to Supreme Court
On Oct. 30 Trump filed suit against Bucks County over long lines and cut-offs for voters seeking to cast mail ballots. Trump’s suit is in response to local GOP complaints over long lines outside sites where people can obtain ballots. Yet in Philadelphia, massive lines at City Hall and other sites to get mail-in ballots, fill them out and turn them in prior to the 5 p.m. deadline on Oct. 29 have not caused similar outrage. While the Bucks County lawsuit only impacts one of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, another case via the Republican National Committee (RNC) has the potential to impact many more voters, both in Philadelphia county — the most populous — and statewide. The RNC petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday Oct. 28 for an emergency order that would prevent Pennsylvanians whose mail ballots are rejected for technical reasons from having a provisional ballot counted.
This case has the potential to shift the balance of the election itself. With every vote in play for Pennsylvania, should the RNC win their case, thousands of ballots could be discarded and no provisional ballots offered to those voters who made a simple error on their mail-in ballot.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court already ruled 4-3 in favor of voters last week, asserting that PA state law gives impacted mail voters an opportunity to still participate by showing up at their polling place in person on Election Day if their ballots have been discarded for these technical reasons, like failing to sign the envelope or forgetting the “secret” second envelope.
But the RNC suit states that the Pennsylvania court is misreading that law, which states a “provisional ballot shall not be counted” if a voter’s mail ballot was “timely received.”
The RNC’s attorneys wrote in their application, “When the legislature says that certain ballots can never be counted, a state court cannot blue-pencil that clear command into always. And here, the General Assembly could not have been clearer.”
County-by-county threat
What makes this case so crucial to Philadelphia voters — particularly those already in marginalized communities like LGBTQ+ and Black, brown and immigrant communities whose votes are often suppressed — is access to a second chance to have their voices heard in this critical election. For example, City Council’s Rue Landau has been working to register more LGBTQ+ voters in the city, understanding both the need for that outreach and the opportunity for LGBTQ+ voices to be heard.
Some Pennsylvania counties do not provide voters an opportunity to fix their mail ballot if it is rejected for technical errors like an improper date or signature issues, and the state court’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would provide those voters with a second chance at having their vote counted.
In the 2020 election, when many states made it easier to vote by mail because of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 1% of returned mail ballots in Pennsylvania were rejected because they did not have secrecy envelopes, according to an analysis from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
More than 1.7 million mail-in ballots have been registered and received in the state as of Oct. 28, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. All polling has shown that the presidential race is a virtual tie in Pennsylvania.
The legal case began after two Pennsylvania voters’ mail-in ballots were rejected in the primary for not being returned with a required inner secrecy envelope. The voters sued and are backed by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
Justice Samuel Alito, who by default handles emergency appeals arising from Pennsylvania, ordered the other parties to respond to the RNC’s application by Oct. 30.
The RNC has asked for a ruling by Nov. 1 due to the proximity of the election. If not, the RNC asked that the challenged provisional ballots be segregated and tallied separately.
“Even if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision does not change the outcome of any election, the question of whether the provisional ballots can be added to the vote total would remain a concrete dispute this Court can review,” the application says.
Report instances of voter intimidation or fraud to your county election office, county district attorney and the Department of State at 1-877-868-3772.
