Fraud is the main issue for Trump and his supporters on the eve of the election

Trump spoke at length about voter ID laws and the ability to break into voting machines, saying tech billionaire Elon Musk advised him that electronic voting systems are less secure than traditional paper ballots.

“Computers are not designed 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 runs the vice president Kamala Harris by less than 1 percentage point in Pennsylvania, on average, conformable TO RealClearPoliticsbut the former president has sown the seeds of doubt about the outcome of the election should he lose.

Trump in particular has challenge integrity of early voting and mail-in policies in the state, but he encouraged Pennsylvania voters to take advantage of early voting when possible, as most Republicans tend to vote on Election Day.

“Let everybody think it’s going to be tight as hell, but whether it is or not, you just have to come out and we have to tame them,” Trump told supporters at PPG Paints Arena, the stadium in hockey and concert. in Pittsburgh.

Trump blamed the media for reporting that it would be a close election.

“Believe the fake news when they say ‘this will be tight.’ That’s really not strict,” Trump said, “but they want to do it because they want to get ratings.”

Doubt about the election

During Trump’s speech in LititzIn Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, the former president made a series of claims about how widespread fraud cost him his 2020 re-election that were not supported by evidence.

Although several rally participants were reluctant to speak to reporters for fear of contributing to so-called fake news,” said many Pittsburgh rally participants. Washington Examiner that they do not trust the integrity of the electoral process.

“They discover millions of ways to cheat. It’s unbelievable,” said Gloria Phillips, a resident of western Pennsylvania. “They cheated on the last one, I guarantee you. I’m afraid they will cheat again. It’s already obvious that they are.”

Aaron Kirow, a resident of Pittsburgh’s North Hills, said Washington Examinerthat election integrity officials have “raised the bar” on the 2020 race. But institutional challenges such as the refusal to remove former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on ballots in several states still unfairly disadvantages Republicans, Kirow said.

“It’s subtle cheating where it’s not overt. Maybe it’s not necessarily someone voting in place of a deceased person or fake ballots coming in,” Kirow said, “but they’re still cheating.”

Glenn of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, said he is more confident in the fairness of the election than he was in 2020, but he still believes widespread fraud will be prevalent.

“He’s just cheating. He’s going to cheat, we have to expect him to cheat,” said Glenn, who declined to give his last name. “Everybody needs to go vote, man. Don’t screw it up. Pretend we’re behind.”

Several attendees echoed Trump’s claim that he hoped Republican turnout was “too big to be manipulated,” a phrase the former president used to encourage turnout.

“I think it’s going to be too big to handle,” said Christa from Northeast Ohio, who also brought her husband and child to the rally. “I think there’s some cheating in all elections, so it’s not something I trust. But again, I hope for fair elections.

Garret, a 22-year-old student from Dayton, Ohio, said he hoped Trump could make turnout “too high to tamper” this year, but expressed concern that electronic voting systems are open to vulnerabilities .

“I think if they’re going to use computers, it might be pretty hard to stop them from cheating, like hacking the system,” Garret said. “You can’t really tell where it’s going to come from.”

Trump told a story about how his son, Barron Trump, was able to easily crack his computer password as proof that young people are able to manipulate technology more easily.

“Elon said there’s no computer in the world that can’t be easily hacked,” Trump said.

Pennsylvania, the swing state

Trump shocked the nation when he turned Pennsylvania red for the first time in nearly three decades in 2016 by about 44,000 votes. President Joe Biden, a Scranton native, flipped the Keystone State back in 2020 by about 81,000 votes during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic when the state relaxed its mail-in voting requirements.

As of 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, eastern Pennsylvania, has traveled with her husband to more than 20 Trump rallies selling merchandise, including the second rally in Butler on Oct. 5 after the assassination attempt in this summer.

Gomez said she was afraid to cast her vote in person in Reading because in 2020 she had trouble voting at the voting machine.

“I feel like I should have voted earlier. It stressed us out to vote early,” Gomez said of Trump. “But I say that I have never voted early. I’m always used to voting on election day.”