Officials Dismiss Trump’s “Massive Cheating” Allegation in Philadelphia

Election authorities in the United States have addressed various online assertions that question the integrity of the voting process, including a specific claim by Donald Trump of “massive cheating.” These officials have refuted certain accusations of electoral misconduct and have clarified legitimate issues that were presented without proper context. BBC Verify has been monitoring and investigating the most widely circulated of these claims. Mr. Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, stating that “law enforcement coming” to Philadelphia was due to “massive cheating” occurring there. He did not offer any specific details or evidence to substantiate his allegations of cheating. The Philadelphia Police Department informed BBC Verify that they had no knowledge of the events Mr. Trump was referencing. Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, commented on X: “There is no factual basis whatsoever within law enforcement to support this wild allegation.” Similarly, Seth Bluestein, the Republican City Commissioner in Philadelphia, posted on X: “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. It is yet another example of disinformation. Voting in Philadelphia has been safe and secure.“ A social media image depicted an individual holding a mail-in ballot paper, which they asserted already contained a mark next to Kamala Harris’s name. The person who shared this image on X contended that selecting any other candidate would invalidate the ballot. One particular post, which garnered over 3 million views, suggested the photograph illustrated “weird ballot shenanigans happening”. BBC Verify contacted the Kentucky Board of Elections, which denied the allegation. The Board stated that it had dispatched 130,000 ballots and had not received any complaints regarding mail-in ballots having pre-printed marks in any candidate selection boxes. It further commented: “As no one has presented a pre-marked ballot to election administrators or law enforcement, the claim that at least one ballot may have had a pre-printed mark in Kentucky, currently only exists in the vacuum of social media.” The election board additionally clarified that for mail-in ballots in Kentucky, if more than one candidate choice was marked in ink, the ballot would still be counted provided the voter circled their preferred choice. An X post asserting that “the Pentagon reportedly failed to send absentee ballots to active military service members before the election” has accumulated over 28 million views. This post cited a letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, authored by three Republican members of Congress, which conveyed “grave concern” regarding “deficiencies” in the procedures for overseas military personnel to vote. However, the letter itself did not accuse the Pentagon of failing to dispatch absentee ballots. This task is not within the Pentagon’s purview; military personnel serving abroad can vote through the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), and their ballots are sent to them by election officials in their registered US locations. Should a ballot be at risk of not arriving before the voting deadline, personnel have the option to vote using a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB). The letter claimed that an unspecified number of “service members” had requested a FWAB but were informed that their base had run out. Nevertheless, it is possible to download and sign such a ballot via the FVAP website. We requested details from the Department of Defense concerning the number of individuals affected, but they declined to comment. The Department did confirm that it had trained 3,000 Voting Assistance Officers to assist personnel with voting. Several posts on X implied a connection between power outages reported in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and election interference. Some of these posts specifically highlighted outages in Northampton County. One post, which received a quarter of a million views, alleged “they are shutting down the power in Pennsylvania” and included a power outage map of the county. According to a power outage tracking website, Northampton County receives electricity from two providers: FirstEnergy and PPL Electric Utilities. Todd Meyers, a spokesperson for FirstEnergy, informed BBC Verify that eight polling locations in the county experienced outages, which were attributed to an electrical fault. Mr. Meyers stated: “All polling locations had their power restored within 10 minutes and all had battery backup for voting machines and voters were not impacted”. BBC Verify also sought comment from PPL Electric Utilities. A video that seemingly depicted an individual repeatedly attempting unsuccessfully to vote for Donald Trump on a voting machine in Laurel County, Kentucky – before a vote ultimately appeared next to Kamala Harris’s name – gained widespread attention. The person who uploaded the video stated: “I hit Trump’s name 10 times and it wouldn’t work I then began recording and you can see what happened…. Switched it to Harris.” Another post, viewed nearly seven million times, featured this video alongside the assertion: “Voting machines in Kentucky are literally changing the vote from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. This is election interference!” Election officials verified the video’s authenticity and confirmed the machine did malfunction, but they characterized it as an isolated incident and affirmed that the voter successfully cast their ballot as intended. The county clerk explained in a statement: “After several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur. This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not.” The machine in question was removed from service pending inspection, and later that day, the county clerk shared a video on Facebook demonstrating the machine operating correctly. Joseph Greaney, a voting expert at the US election website Ballotpedia, commented: “In an election on this scale there are always going to be some problems.” He added: “It can be one or two machines but people are extrapolating those out into a bigger problems, but I would say with a good degree of confidence that they are isolated incidents and they are caught.” What do you want BBC Verify to investigate? Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.