Donald Trump claims there's 'massive cheating' in Philadelphia, but election officials disagree

PHILADELPHIA — Former President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon that there has been “a lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia” throughout the day.

Where that “talk” was coming from is not clear. Aside from a few minor dustups — the kind typical of any election day in a big city — Republicans on the ground in Philadelphia said things were going well.

”We see it very smoothly here,” said Vince Fenerty, chairman of the city’s Republican Party. “I haven’t heard about any complaints of people cheating in Philadelphia.”

Despite the former president’s claims — posted on Truth Social around 4:30 p.m. — Fenerty said voting operations had been mostly seamless, and he was pleased with signs of higher-than-expected turnout in Republican-heavy wards.

Matt Wolfe, a Republican election attorney, said he helped resolve an early-morning dispute that involved a Republican election inspector gaining access to a polling place. He got the District Attorney’s Office involved and the issue was swiftly resolved.

”It seems quieter than I would expect,” Wolfe said. “It seems like a normal presidential election.”

Republican attorneys have been running a “war room” out of a Center City hotel throughout the day Tuesday, tracking election-related issues from party attorneys across Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, Wolf said. An Inquirer reporter who visited the call center was declined an interview.

Seth Bluestein, a Philadelphia City Commissioner, was quick to debunk Trump’s claims on X.

”This is yet another example of disinformation,” the Republican official wrote.

“We have been in touch with the RNC, and anyone who has had complaints throughout the day,” Bluestein told reporters in an impromptu news conference. “Everything has been handled appropriately. We look forward to continued voting until 8 p.m., when the polls close.”

In a statement, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said “there is no factual basis whatsoever within law enforcement to support this wild allegation.”

“We have invited complaints and allegations of improprieties all day,” Krasner said. “If Donald J. Trump has any facts to support his wild allegations, we want them now. Right now. We are not holding our breath.”

Election officials in Philadelphia and its collar counties reported relatively quiet election days with occasional issues at polling places, including long lines at Villanova and polling places that opened late.

Philly judge rebuffs Trump campaign complaints about Democratic poll badges

By Tuesday evening, just one issue had come up in Philadelphia’s election court: a complaint from the Trump campaign that Democratic poll watchers violated state guidance by wearing badges identifying their party inside polls across the city — which a Philadelphia judge rebuffed.

At issue were the small, 3.5-by-6-inch placards the party provided to its monitors that read “PA Dems” in quarter-inch font above words “VOTER PROTECTION” in much larger characters.

Trump campaign lawyer Linda Kerns described the badges as a clear example of “illegal electioneering” that runs counter to state guidelines barring election staff or volunteer poll watchers from wearing partisan material at the polls.

But Common Pleas Court Judge Michelle Hangley refused Kerns’ request to issue an order requiring Democrats to remove them.

She noted the text identifying their party was likely too small for any voter to see and that there’d been no evidence presented that Democratic monitors had approached any voters or that any voters had spotted the small party affiliation printed on the badge.

An order barring them wasn’t necessary, Hangley said, and could be disruptive.

“It says PA Dems in font that is so small that no one — unless they’re going up to the watcher and peering down at them — could even see this,” the judge said. “I don’t believe the guidance was meant to apply to wearing that type of apparel either covered up or too small to read.”

Still, GOP complaints about the badges have cropped up across Pennsylvania throughout the day Tuesday.

A Common Pleas Court judge in Allegheny County issued an order preventing Democrat poll watchers from wearing the badges there. And Republicans said they intend to appeal Hangley’s decision in Philadelphia.

“This is rampant all over the city,” Kerns said. “They just want to be really disruptive and have a county in this commonwealth where it’s okay to put the words ‘PA Dems’ on election workers and poll watchers.”

Guidance issued by state elections officials prohibits poll watchers from “engaging in electioneering, while inside the polling place, which includes wearing apparel or accessories that signify support for a candidate or party.”

But Marni Snyder, a lawyer representing the Democrats in court in Philadelphia, maintained the badges did not violate those rules. They may have the party’s name on them, she said, but they weren’t disruptive or intended to persuade voters at the polls.

Still, she said the party had urged poll watchers at specific polling locations not to wear their badges inside after the GOP brought complaints to their attention.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Snyder said. “These are not things that are going to intimidate voters or bother voters at the polls. These are not things to change anyone’s mind. This is not electioneering.”

In a separate instance in Delaware County, one person was arrested at an East Lansdowne polling place after, during a mental health episode, they attacked a poll worker, according to county election officials. Jim Allen, the election director in the county, said there was no reason to believe the incident was politically motivated and the worker was uninjured.

“Overall on Election Day everybody is happy and they’re making their voice heard,” Neil Makhija, a Democrat who chairs the Montgomery County Election Board, said. “It’s really about what happens when a whole lot of people are upset with the result that I’m more concerned [about].”

At 7 a.m., Pennsylvania counties began processing mail ballots, opening envelopes, flattening ballots and scanning them into machines (though they cannot pull results until the evening.)

Across the five Philadelphia collar counties, officials said the process was moving smoothly. By 3 p.m., Chester County had processed about 20,000 ballots, county spokesperson Becky Brain said. And just before 5 p.m., Makhija said Montgomery County had processed about 80,000.