City commissioners responded to accusations from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that Philadelphia is “cheating” in the election.
Tuesday afternoon, Trump posted to Truth Social, without evidence, that there was “A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law Enforcement coming!!!”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein posted to X in response, “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. It is yet another example of disinformation. Voting in Philadelphia has been safe and secure.”
Bluestein responded further during a Tuesday evening press conference along with City Commissioner Omar Sabir.
“There is no truth to the allegation that there is massive cheating in Philadelphia,” Bluestein said. “We have been in touch with the RNC and anybody who has any complaints throughout the day, we’ve been responsive and everything has been handled appropriately.”
Sabir also reiterated that the election was safe and secure in Philadelphia.
“To be clear, Philadelphia elections are safe, simple and secure and they’ve always been,” Sabir said. “There is no cheating. There’s no smoke to it. People say things but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. We’ve learned this in 2020. We have hardworking people trying to give the citizens of America the election that they deserve.”
When asked what he would say to Trump directly, Sabir replied that he didn’t want to say anything to him.
“Only thing I want to say is us, citizens of Philadelphia, you’re going to get the election that you deserve and you have always been having accurate results and honesty and we have great citizens here working to do their job,” he said. “This playbook has been played since 2020. We saw it and we’re going to do our job to give the citizens and give America the election that they deserve.”
NBC10 reached out to Kush Desai – the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania spokesperson – for comment. We will include a statement once we receive one.
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Pennsylvania has been the major target of mis- and disinformation campaigns on Election Day, according to researchers.
Actual tabulator issues in Pennsylvania were the basis of major rumors in the morning, said Kate Starbird, founder of Washington University’s Center for an Informed Public. The rumors potentially echo those that spread during the 2022 election in Maricopa County, Arizona, she added, “from early rumors of concern about the issues and the proposed remedies to later conspiracy theories about the issues being an intentional effort to disenfranchise election day voters.”
Among battleground states, most of the social media claims related to voter fraud have focused on Pennsylvania, according to Peak Metrics, a group that tracks online threats. Posts about Pennsylvania’s purported election fraud account for 61% of the group’s tracked fraud and state-related posts, with major attention on Cambria County and Philadelphia.
