By Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democrat Kamala Harris’ election campaign on Thursday rejected claims by Republican Donald Trump of widespread election fraud in the battleground state of Pennsylvania and said the system was working as it should to identify the small number of issues arising.
A senior Harris campaign official said the campaign was monitoring voting around the country, working with state attorneys general, and tracking any reported problems ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
On Wednesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social website: “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before.” On Thursday he wrote: “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania. Must announce and PROSECUTE, NOW!” He did not provide evidence for his assertions.
The Harris campaign official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told reporters on a conference call that the “cheating” was only in the mind of someone wanting to make that claim and was a further example of how Trump was trying to sow doubt in the system because he was afraid he would lose.
Trump and his Republican allies have launched a flurry of lawsuits ahead of the election, many of which have sought to place restrictions on casting and counting of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and other states.
They say the measures are efforts to tighten election security measures to prevent fraud, which Trump falsely claims cost him the 2020 election. He has escalated his complaints about early voting and assertions of fraud in recent days.
“Our election integrity team has been notified of legitimate instances of voter fraud and voter suppression by real voters on the ground,” said Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who did not respond directly to the Harris campaign comments.
Opinion polls show the two candidates nearly tied in the seven battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina – that could decide the outcome of the election.
The issues that have arisen include a “handful” of people turned away from early voting lines in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and three counties in the state who have identified an unspecified number of suspicious registrations that were declined and reported to law enforcement, the Harris campaign official said, adding that was “the system working just as it should.”
A judge in the state extended until Friday the deadline for mail-in ballots in Bucks County after Trump’s campaign sued.
Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top election official, has said videos shared of voters being turned away from early voting lines in the county lacked context or were inaccurate.
The Harris campaign has also launched lawsuits. It sued over reports Erie County voters had not received their mail-in ballots, and were now hopeful that those ballots would go out in time, the official said.
The campaign had prepared thousands of pages of pleadings customized state by state in preparation for legal fights after the election, the official added.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw, additional reporting by Jack QueenEditing by Chris Reese and Rosalba O’Brien)
