Trump’s Wild, Baseless Claims of Illegal Voting

In speaking about the Keystone State, Trump baselessly alleged election engineering and mischaracterized a court ruling related to partisan election observers. While one ruling allowed observers to get as close as 6 feet, the president’s claim that “they don’t want us to have any observers” is false. There is also no evidence that local officials have improperly handled the election.

“We were up by nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. I won Pennsylvania by a lot. And that gets whittled down to, I think they said now we’re up by 90,000 votes and they’ll keep coming and coming and coming,” Trump said. “They find them all over and they don’t want us to have any observers. Although we won a court case, the judge said, ‘You have to have observers.’”

As we’ve explained before, Trump cannot claim to have won Pennsylvania. The earlier vote returns were in his favor, as the in-person votes were counted more quickly, but mail-in and absentee ballots could not even be opened and prepared for counting until 7 a.m. on Nov. 3. The count of legitimately cast ballots is still proceeding. 

Because more Democrats tended to vote by mail — likely due, in part, to the party’s active encouragement of such ballots to lock in votes early — many more of the votes that were counted later were for Biden, leading to a “blue shift” over time. Democrats accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 2.6 million returned mail-in ballots, according to an analysis of Pennsylvania election data by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor who maintains the U.S. Elections Project.

And indeed, as many analysts expected, the Democratic nominee took the lead in the state on the morning of Nov. 6.

Trump also baselessly said that Philadelphia was in the process of “engineering the outcome of a presidential race” and that “officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democrat machine.”

There’s no indication that any election malfeasance has occurred. It’s also not true that all of the officials in charge of counting ballots are Democrats. In Philadelphia, that job falls to a bipartisan trio of commissioners that includes one Republican.

The commonwealth’s website similarly states that “bipartisan teams of election officials in each county are making sure your vote is accurately counted and verified.”

Trump then proceeded to mischaracterize litigation pertaining to observers watching the vote counting process, saying that Democrats “have gone to the state Supreme Court to try and ban our election observers and very strongly.”

The dispute has been over how close observers can get to the canvassing proceedings, not whether observers are allowed to be present. Initially, a trial court denied the Trump campaign’s request for closer observation in Philadelphia, finding on Nov. 3 that by the campaign’s own admission, it had been given the opportunity to observe “the opening and sorting of ballots.”

The next day, a state court reversed that ruling, allowing observers within 6 feet, “while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.” Philadelphia’s election board then appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court, saying that it had complied with the law and that closer inspection “jeopardizes both the safety of the City Defendants’ canvass, plus the privacy of voters.”

Separately, but on the same issue, the Trump campaign filed suit in federal court on Nov. 5 to stop the vote count in Philadelphia. That request was dismissed by a judge — who was appointed by President George W. Bush — after both sides agreed that each would be allowed 60 observers. The Trump lawyer admitted during the hearing that the campaign did have some canvassing observers present, stating, “There’s a non-zero number of people in the room.”

Philadelphia, notably, has been livestreaming its vote canvassing, which is available online for anyone to watch.

Trump also misleadingly summarized a previous state Supreme Court decision that permits ballots that are postmarked by Nov. 3 to be accepted if received by Nov. 6. (In refusing a Republican request to expedite review of the case, the U.S. Supreme Court let the state court decision stand — but could opt to revisit the case after the election.)

“In Pennsylvania, partisan Democrats have allowed ballots in the state to be received three days after the election, and we think much more than that, and they’re counting those without even postmarks or any identification whatsoever,” he said. “So you don’t have postmarks, you don’t have identification.”

According to the rules, which were implemented due to concerns about postal delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, a ballot postmarked by Election Day can be accepted if received by 5 p.m. on Nov. 6. In the rare case in which there is a missing or illegible postmark, ballots without postmarks will be allowed unless there is a “preponderance of evidence” they were mailed after the deadline.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar explained in a Nov. 4 press conference that the vast majority of these later-arriving ballots should have postmarks on them, as that is standard fare for mail. Trump, therefore, is wrong to suggest that most or all of these ballots would not have postmarks.

It’s also false for the president to claim that the ballots do not require “any identification whatsoever.” According to the state’s website, “In order to apply for an absentee or mail-in ballot, you must supply proof of identification.”

Furthermore, the later-arriving ballots are not even relevant yet, as none of the mail-in ballots received past the 8 p.m. Nov. 3 cutoff have been included in the counts so far. Counties are keeping those ballots separate so they can be distinguished in case of further litigation.