Harris campaign rejects Trump’s claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania

By Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Kamala Harris’s campaign on Thursday rejected Republican Donald Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, saying the system was working as it should to detect the small number of problems that emerged.

A senior Harris campaign official said the campaign is monitoring voting across the country, working with state attorneys general and following up on reported issues ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

On Wednesday, Trump posted on the website Truth Social: “Pennsylvania is cheating and getting caught on a scale rarely seen before.” He wrote on Thursday: “We caught them PERFORMING BIG TRICKS in Pennsylvania. We must announce and prosecute NOW!” He did not provide evidence for his allegations.

A Harris campaign official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told reporters on the conference call that the “trick” was merely in the mind of someone who wanted to make that claim and was another example of how Trump is trying to sow doubt. The system because it is afraid of losing.

Trump and his Republican allies launched a series of lawsuits ahead of the election; Many of them have sought to impose restrictions on vote-by-mail voting and counting in Pennsylvania and other states.

They say the measures are efforts to tighten election security measures to prevent fraud; Trump falsely claims this cost him the 2020 election. He has increased his complaints about early voting and allegations of corruption in recent days.

“Our election integrity team has been made aware of cases of legitimate voter fraud and voter suppression by actual voters in the field,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who did not directly respond to Harris’ campaign comments.

Opinion polls show that two candidates who are nearly tied in seven battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina) could determine the outcome of the election.

The problems that emerged include “a handful” of people returning early voting lines in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and three counties in the state; these individuals identified an unspecified number of suspicious records that were rejected and reported to law enforcement. The campaign official stated that this meant “the system is working as it should.”

A judge in the state extended the deadline for mail-in ballots in Bucks County to Friday after the Trump campaign was sued.

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top elections official, said videos shared of voters being directed away from early voting lines in the county lacked context or were inaccurate.

Harris’ campaign also filed a lawsuit. Erie County voters filed a lawsuit over reports that they did not receive mail-in ballots, and are now hopeful those ballots will show up on time, the official said.

The official added that the campaign has prepared thousands of pages of petitions customized on a state-by-state basis in preparation for post-election legal battles.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw, additional reporting by Jack Queen, Editing by Chris Reese and Rosalba O’Brien)