PITTSBURGH — The integrity of the election process was a central topic for former President Donald Trump during his final stop in Pittsburg, before the election on Tuesday.
Trump spoke at length about voter identification laws and the ability to break into voting machines, saying that tech billionaire Elon Musk advised him that electronic voting systems are less secure than traditional paper ballots.
“Computers aren’t meant for this kind of thing,” Trump said of his conversations with Musk. “The only thing you can do is paper ballots and same-day voting.”
Trump is leading Vice President Kamala Harris by less than 1 percentage point in Pennsylvania on average, according to RealClearPolitics, but the former president has sown seeds of doubt about the outcome of the election should he lose.
Trump has particularly challenged the integrity of early and mail-in voting policies in the state, but he has encouraged Pennsylvanian voters to take advantage of early voting when possible since most Republicans tend to vote on Election Day.
“Let everyone think it is going to be as tight as hell, but whether it is or not, just you have to go out and we have to swamp them,” Trump said to his supporters at PPG Paints Arena, the hockey and concert stadium in Pittsburgh.
Trump blamed the media for reporting that it was going to be a close election.
“Believe the fake news when they say ‘this is going to be tight.’ This is really not tight,” said Trump, “but they want to do that because they want to get ratings.”
Doubt about the election
During Trump’s speech in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County on Sunday, the former president made a host of claims about how widespread fraud cost him reelection in 2020, which has not been supported by proof.
Although several attendees of the rally were reticent to speak to reporters for fear of contributing to the so-called fake news,” multiple rally attendees in Pittsburgh told the Washington Examiner that they are not confident about the integrity of the election process.
“They’re figuring out millions of ways to cheat. It’s unbelievable,” said Gloria Phillips, a western Pennsylvania resident. “They cheated in the last one, I guarantee you. I’m afraid they’re gonna cheat again. That’s already evident that they are.”
Aaron Kirow, a resident of the North Hills of Pittsburgh, told the Washington Examiner, that election integrity officials have “raised the bar” since the 2020 race. But institutional challenges, like refusing to remove former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from ballots in several states, still unfairly disadvantages Republicans, Kirow said.
“It’s the subtle cheating where it’s not overt. Maybe not necessarily somebody’s voting in place of a dead person or fake ballots coming in,” said Kirow, “but it’s still cheating.”
Glenn from Beaver County, Pennsylvania, said that he is more secure in the fairness of the election than he was in 2020, but he still believes widespread fraud will be rampant.
“They’re just cheating. They’re gonna cheat, we gotta expect them to cheat,” said Glenn, who declined to provide his last name. “Everybody’s just gotta go vote, man. Don’t pass it off. Just pretend like we’re behind.”
Several attendees repeated Trump’s line that they hope Republican turnout is “too big to rig,” a phrase used by the former president to encourage voter turnout.
“I think it’s going to be too big to rig,” said Christa from northeastern Ohio, who brought her husband and infant to the rally as well. “I think there is some cheating in all elections, so it’s not something that I trust. But, again, I hope for a fair election.
Garret, a 22-year-old college student from Dayton, Ohio, said that he hopes Trump can make turnout “too big to rig” this year, but he voiced concerns that electronic voting systems are open to vulnerabilities.
“I just think if they’re gonna use computers, it could be kind of hard to stop them from cheating, like hacking into the system,” said Garret. “You can’t really figure out where that’s gonna come from.”
Trump told a story about how his son, Barron Trump, was able to easily crack his password to his computer as evidence that young people are able to manipulate technology more easily.
“Elon said there is no computer in the world that can’t be broken into easily,” said Trump.
Pennsylvania the swing state
Trump shocked the nation when he flipped Pennsylvania red for the first time in nearly three decades in 2016 by about 44,000 votes. President Joe Biden, a native of Scranton, flipped the Keystone State back in 2020 by about 81,000 votes during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic when the state loosened mail-in voting requirements.
In March 2021, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 630,000. But as of October 2024, Democrats only outnumber Republicans by 300,000.
Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh on Monday makes a total of 17 stops in Allegheny County among the GOP and Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates, a new record for an election season according to local officials.
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Rafaela Gomez, a resident of Reading in eastern Pennsylvania, has traveled with her husband to more than 20 Trump rallies selling merchandise, including at the second rally in Butler on Oct. 5 following the assassination attempt there this summer.
Gomez said that she is scared to cast her ballot in person in Reading because, in 2020, she had problems casting her ballot on the voting machine.
“I feel like I should have voted early. He’s been stressing us to vote early,” Gomez said of Trump. “But I’m like, I’ve never voted early. I’m always used to voting on Election Day.”