Trump escalates false election claims in battleground Pennsylvania

By Joseph Tanfani and Andrew Goudsward

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his supporters are spreading false claims about the election in battleground Pennsylvania ahead of Tuesday's vote, escalating concerns in a state that could tip the outcome of the race.

Trump on Thursday stepped up his unfounded allegations that probes into suspect voter registration forms are 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 show 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 U.S. president's campaign sued over claims that some voters were turned away before a Tuesday deadline.

Election officials discovered potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster and neighboring York counties, prompting investigations by local law enforcement. There is no evidence the applications have led or will lead to illegal votes.

"This is a sign that the built-in safeguards in our voter registration process are working," Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania's top elections official, told reporters this week.

Opinion polls, both nationally and in the seven battleground states, show Trump locked in a tight race with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump, who continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud, insists falsely that he is winning.

"We're going to have a big victory," he told supporters in Wisconsin on Wednesday. Asked if he could envision a scenario in which he lost, he said, "if it was a corrupt election, it could happen."

Trump's 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.

"The facts are there were thousands of fraudulent voter registrations dumped, and voters were turned away throughout Pennsylvania," Republican National Committee spokesperson Claire Zunk said. "We are fighting to protect every legal vote and stop Democrat election interference."

SOWING SEEDS OF CHALLENGES

Democracy advocates hear echoes of Trump's 2020 attempt to overturn his loss, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

"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 the advocacy group Protect Democracy. "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."

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."

In Lancaster County, in southeastern Pennsylvania, the clerk of elections reported that she received about 2,500 applications close to the Oct. 21 voter registration deadline, according to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams.

"Staff noticed that numerous applications appeared to have the same handwriting, were filled out on the same day with unknown signatures, and some were previously registered voters” whose signatures on file did not match those on the application,” Adams said at a press conference last week.

She said that the forms appeared to be connected to a paid, “large-scale canvassing operation” that had been operating since June, signing up voters at public places like shopping centers, grocery stores and parks. She did not identify the operation.

York County said in a statement it declined about 740 registration applications, many of which were duplicates, received as part of a large batch last week. The county district attorney is reviewing those applications, according to the statement.

Schmidt, the state's top elections official, said local law enforcement investigations would determine if criminal charges are warranted in either case.

State officials have expressed concern about online disinformation undermining trust in the process.

U.S. intelligence agencies determined that a video purporting to show ballots being torn up in Bucks County was manufactured and spread by Russian actors as part of Moscow's effort to stoke divisions over the election.

Bucks County officials said a miscommunication led security to briefly turn away some voters from the county election office on Tuesday, when a long line formed ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot. State officials had previously said anyone in line by 5 p.m. would be accommodated.

Bucks County said in a statement it was pleased that a judge later extended the mail-in ballot deadline until Friday.

In Colorado, which is seen as solidly Democratic, the Trump campaign has also sought to exploit an admission from the secretary of state's office that partial passwords to voting systems were included in a spreadsheet posted the office's public website.

The campaign on Thursday asked the state to halt the processing of mail-in ballots and to prepare to re-scan all of them over the issue.

The office previously said the disclosure will not impact how ballots are counted.

(Reporting by Joseph Tanfani in Philadelphia and Andrew Goudsward in Washington, Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot)