Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Fraud Claims Debunked: Trump And Elon Musk Spreading False Fraud Claims In Battleground State
Topline
Former President Donald Trump and his supporters—including billionaire Elon Musk—have spread claims about election irregularities and fraud in Pennsylvania despite officials saying their claims have no merit, as the ex-president begins sowing distrust in the election results as polls suggest he’s virtually tied with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Key Facts
Trump has repeatedly suggested on social media there’s election fraud in Pennsylvania without showing evidence, writing on Truth Social Thursday, “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania.”
Pennsylvania is one of the most high-stakes battleground states in the presidential election—awarding 19 electors to whomever wins—and polling there shows Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris neck-and-neck.
Trump’s comments echo his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, which he used to unsuccessfully try and overturn the vote count after President Joe Biden won, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro claimed on X that Trump is now “trying to use the same playbook to stoke chaos” in this election.
Trump and his supporters’ claims are being amplified in this election by billionaire Elon Musk, who has shared false fraud claims on X, formerly known as Twitter, and allowed conspiracy theories to spread freely on the social platform, which he owns.
State election officials have debunked and opposed the false claims of fraud, with Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt saying at a media briefing Wednesday, “Spreading videos and other information that lack context, sharing social posts filled with half-truths or even outright lies is harmful to our representative democracy.”
Voter Registrations In Lancaster, York And Other Counties
Trump and other Republicans have made claims of voter fraud based on instances in multiple counties in which election officials received unusually large groups of voter registration applications, which were reviewed and sent to district attorney’s offices to investigate potential fraud. Lancaster County reported “hundreds” of fraudulent applications were sent to investigators and York County reported approximately a quarter of the 3,000 registration applications it received in bulk were declined and are undergoing further review. Officials also reported irregular applications in Monroe County, though election officials in Luzerne County, where some last-minute application forms were also flagged, said after reviewing the applications that none were fraudulent. While Trump and other Republicans have held up these instances as evidence of voter fraud, election officials told The Washington Post they were more likely the “sloppy work of a paid canvasser trying to meet a quota” rather than a malicious instance of fraud. Since the irregularities were only reported in voter registration applications, there is also no impact on any actual ballots or votes.
Bucks County Cutting Off Line To Vote
The Trump campaign and its allies, including running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, have pushed claims that voters were denied the opportunity to vote in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, despite being in line before voting ended for the day, with Vance amplifying claims that Democrat-allied “voter protection” workers were cutting off the line. The Trump campaign ultimately filed a lawsuit that resulted in early voting being extended in the county until Friday. Bucks County has pushed back against the suggestions that voters were intentionally being stopped from voting and cut off in line, saying on Monday, “Contrary to what is being depicted on social media, if you are in line by 5 p.m. for an on-demand mail-in ballot application, you will have the opportunity to submit your application for a mail-in ballot.” (The state does not have traditional early voting, but allows voters to request and submit mail ballots in person.) The county did acknowledge there was a “miscommunication” that meant “individuals in line to apply for an on-demand mail-in ballot were briefly told they could not be accommodated,” but added that those voters “were given the opportunity to submit mail-in ballot applications today.”
Woman Arrested In Delaware County
The Trump campaign claimed in a campaign email Monday that a woman in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was arrested “for fighting voter suppression” and “encouraging people to stay in line and vote.” Delaware County responded in a statement, reported by ABC News, saying the woman in question was being “disruptive, belligerent, and attempting to influence voters waiting in line,” and remained in the polling place’s lobby for two hours and “approached various individuals” but did not get in line to vote herself. Police apprehended the woman and asked her to leave after voters complained, county officials said, and first “provided her with verbal guidance on appropriate behavior and allowed her to remain in the lobby.” After additional complaints were lodged against the woman and she refused to leave, she was “briefly detained, and was issued a citation for disorderly conduct,” a county spokesperson told ABC News.
Ballot Delivery In Northampton County
A viral video posted on X Monday purporting to show a man dropping off an “obscene amount of ballots” in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, actually depicted a postal worker delivering ballots to the local elections office, NBC News confirmed. The video, which was shared by right-wing influencers including Alex Jones, has led to the postal worker getting harassed, Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure told NBC, adding, “I hope if you do a story that the story will be that this is incredibly stupid election misinformation … And, you know, stop it.”
Ballots Ripped Up In Bucks County
After a video went viral that was purporting to show ballots being ripped up in Bucks County, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying they had determined “Russian actors manufactured and amplified” the video, describing it as “part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans.” The video has been attributed to Russian disinformation team Storm-1516, NBC reports. Local prosecutors also separately debunked the video, similarly “conclud[ing]
that this video was fabricated in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election.”
Allegheny County Voters Cutting Lines
Trump supporters complained about noncitizens allegedly being allowed to vote in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, after social media posts claimed buses of non-English speakers arrived at a polling place and those voters cut other people in line. Allegheny County issued a statement saying a video posted on social media only showed a “brief conversation between voters, their translators, and a County employee,” after which elderly and disabled voters in the group were allowed to sit down as they waited to vote while able-bodied members of the group went to the back of the line. Sam DeMarco, a local council member who supports Trump, shared the county’s statement, and local outlet TribLive reports that he was told by county lawyers the voters at issue are U.S. citizens who are members of the local Nepalese and Bhutanese community. “These are members of the refugee community, and they are registered to vote in Allegheny County,” DeMarco said, and Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh director Khara Timsina told TribLive the voters became citizens around 2013 and 2014. While Republicans have made false claims about noncitizens voting in the November election, in practice noncitizen voting is extremely rare, with one study finding only 0.0001% of ballots cast in 2016 across 12 states were unlawful votes by noncitizens.
What To Watch For
Trump and his supporters are likely to continue spreading false claims of fraud through and after Election Day. Those claims are likely to spread more rapidly and unchecked on X, CNN notes, where Musk has allowed misinformation and disinformation to spread without the moderation measures that other social platforms have taken—and repeatedly spread the false claims himself. “Elon Musk is a huge problem,” an unnamed Pennsylvania official told CNN. (Musk has not yet responded to a request for comment.) Pennsylvania is one of the states that’s likely to take longer to report election results, due to laws in the state that only allow election workers to start processing ballots on Election Day. That could allow misinformation to further spread while ballots are being counted, as happened in 2020. Trump also filed numerous lawsuits in the state in 2020 taking issue with election processes and falsely alleging fraud—nearly all of which failed, save for one minor lawsuit affecting only a small number of votes—which may happen again this year. Schmidt said Thursday that while the final timing of the election results will depend on how close the race is—and final results will not be available by Election Day—the state has taken steps since 2020 to try and speed up the ballot counting process, like giving counties the funds to invest in more resources for counting. Counties will also now be required to report how many ballots are still left to count, which will help combat claims of ballots being “found” at the last minute that proliferated during the 2020 election.
Contra
While Trump has pointed to issues like the allegedly fraudulent voter registrations as being evidence of the election being fraudulent and rigged against him, election officials told the Post that the fact the registrations were flagged actually shows the guardrails that are in place to catch and prevent election fraud are working as they should. Nina Jancowitz, CEO of anti-disinformation group American Sunlight Project, also noted to CNN that the outsized role Musk is playing in the election and him using X to freely spread false information “is far closer to election interference than any of the allegations that conservatives have made against social media platforms from 2016 to 2022.”
Further Reading
Pennsylvania 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Race Virtually Tied In 7 New Surveys Of Vital Battleground (Forbes)
Trump alleges fraud in Pennsylvania, but officials say the election is secure (Washington Post)
Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine (CNN)
‘Big lie’ 2.0: How Trump’s false claims about noncitizens voting lay the groundwork to undermine the election (NBC News)
Pennsylvania officials reject viral claim about illegal voters (BBC)
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania bill would incentivize purchase of near-zero-emission large trucks
New legislation at the Pennsylvania statehouse is intended to incentivize purchases of near-zero-emission large trucks.
Sen. Rosemary Brown, R-Monroe, introduced a bill last week that would create a Near-Zero-Emission Truck Incentive Program.
The grant program would be administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The state Department of Environmental Protection would work in consultation with the highway department to reduce emission from large trucks.
Brown wrote in a memo to state senators that “the federal government took steps to tightly regulate heavy-duty truck emissions between model years 2007 and 2010 by requiring the standardization of selective catalytic reduction and diesel particulate filters.” She added that trucks sold in 2006 emit about 10 times the amount of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter as trucks sold today.
Brown told lawmakers that about 34% of trucks registered in Pennsylvania are pre-2010 model trucks.
“These trucks contribute the majority of emissions from the trucking industry in the state,” she wrote. “The proposed grant program will lead to the replacement of these trucks with newer, much cleaner trucks, resulting in lower emissions from the trucking industry and cleaner air for all.”
Additionally, she said the addition of multiple standard safety technologies by original equipment manufacturers in post-2010 model trucks will save lives in Pennsylvania.
Grant program
Her bill, SB1348, would require the state DOT and Department of Environmental Protection to apply for federal funds available for the purpose of reducing pollution.
The state would use the funds to create a grant program to incentivize the purchase of model year 2010 or newer trucks to be titled and registered in Pennsylvania, if accompanied by a trade-in of a pre-2010 diesel truck that is also titled and registered in the state.
“No other single technology transfer can affect Pennsylvania’s air quality and provide immediate health benefits as much as replacing pre-2010 trucks with post-2010 models,” Brown wrote.
The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association supports the bill.
Rebecca Oyler, PMTA president, said the federal excise tax acts as a disincentive to companies wishing to update their equipment to the latest technology.
“Providing an incentive program at the state level helps offset this impediment and avoids costly mandates that would cripple the trucking industry,” Oyler said in prepared remarks.
SB1348 is in the Senate Transportation Committee. LL
More Land Line coverage of news from Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Passes Bitcoin Rights Bill, Proposes Strategic Reserve
Pennsylvania is stepping into the digital future with bold legislation aimed at solidifying its role as a leader in the emerging digital asset economy. On October 23, 2024, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill 2481—dubbed the “Bitcoin Rights” bill by Dennis Porter, co-founder of the Satoshi Action Fund—with a decisive 176–26 bipartisan vote. This legislation positions Pennsylvania among states at the forefront of digital asset regulation and underscores its commitment to fostering innovation in the sector while addressing critical issues like economic empowerment and financial inclusion.
House Bill 2481 enshrines the rights of individuals and businesses to self-custody digital assets, operate blockchain nodes, and conduct transactions without interference from restrictive municipal ordinances. Sponsored by Rep. Mike Cabell (R-Luzerne) and supported by bipartisan vote, the bill reflects a growing recognition across party lines of blockchain technology’s transformative potential.
The vote also revealed divisions within the Democratic Party, with all 26 opposing votes coming from Democratic representatives. Nevertheless, prominent members of the Democratic party, including Majority Leader Joanna McClinton (D-Phila/Delaware) and Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Phila), backed the measure highlighting its potential to stimulate economic growth and expand opportunities for underserved communities. Their support signals a broader acknowledgment of blockchain’s role in empowering marginalized groups through equitable access to financial tools.
Building On Momentum: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act
Following the passage of HB 2481, Republican Representatives Mike Cabell and Aaron Kaufer introduced HB 2664 (the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act) on November 14, 2024. If enacted, this legislation would enable the state treasurer to allocate up to 10% of Pennsylvania’s General Fund, Rainy Day Fund, and State Investment Fund into bitcoin and crypto-based exchange-traded products (ETPs), as explained in the bill’s legislative memo. This could mean an investment of up to $970 million in bitcoin, leveraging its potential as both a hedge against inflation and a long-term growth asset, as reported by DeCrypt.
The Strategic Bitcoin Reserves Debate
The introduction of Pennsylvania’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act aligns with a broader conversation about government-held cryptocurrency reserves, echoing national debates sparked by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis and the Trump administration’s proposal for a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve. The state-level initiative reflects Pennsylvania’s proactive stance, but it has also reignited concerns about the potential risks of investing public funds in bitcoin.
Proponents Highlight Benefits
Proponents argue that bitcoin’s decentralized nature and fixed supply make it a strong hedge against inflation and an asset comparable to gold. As Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter noted in a recent CryptoSlate article, “Bitcoin aligns incentives. When incentives align, we all win.” Advocates highlight Bitcoin’s significant appreciation over time and its growing acceptance among financial institutions as a store of value.
Supporters believe the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act could enhance fiscal stability by diversifying the state’s investments. The proposal mirrors broader efforts in states like Wyoming, where Lummis has championed bitcoin’s inclusion in national reserves, describing it as a safeguard against dollar devaluation and economic volatility.
Critics Raise Concerns
Despite its potential benefits, the concept of holding bitcoin in government reserves faces substantial criticism. Skeptics, including financial analysts and environmental advocates, point to the cryptocurrency’s extreme price volatility as a major risk. Bitcoin’s historical price swings—both surging and plummeting within short periods—raise questions about the stability of using it to back state or national funds.
Additionally, critics highlight security vulnerabilities in holding digital assets. High-profile breaches of institutional-grade storage solutions have underscored the risks of cyberattacks, which could make bitcoin reserves a target for bad actors. Environmental concerns related to bitcoin mining’s energy consumption further fuel opposition to public investment in the asset.
These concerns underscore parallels between Pennsylvania’s debate and the national critique of the Trump administration’s rumored executive order to formalize a U.S. bitcoin reserve. Critics have questioned whether introducing bitcoin into government holdings would expose the economy to unnecessary risk and divert resources from more stable investments. The outcome of this legislation could set a precedent, not only for other states but also for shaping the broader discourse on digital assets in fiscal policy.
Bipartisan Innovation In Action
Pennsylvania’s recent actions stand out in a national landscape often marked by federal gridlock and partisan divides on crypto policy. The state’s forward-looking approach mirrors pioneering efforts in Wyoming, Texas, and Florida. The bipartisan support for HB 2481 and subsequent legislative proposals like the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act demonstrate the economic promise lawmakers on both sides of the aisle see in blockchain technology. By codifying the rights of digital asset holders and creating a framework for state-level investment in crypto, Pennsylvania is charting a path that other states can follow.
Why Pennsylvania’s Leadership Matters
Pennsylvania’s legislation arrives at a critical moment for the digital asset ecosystem. With the most pro-crypto presidency and Congress in U.S. history set to take office in 2025, states like Pennsylvania have a unique opportunity to shape national policy from the ground up. The Commonwealth’s decisive actions on HB 2481 and the proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act signal to businesses, investors, and policymakers that Pennsylvania is open for innovation.
HB 2481 is more than a regulatory milestone—it is a strategic move to attract fintech companies, blockchain developers, and digital asset investors. The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry has expressed strong support, emphasizing that the state’s clear stance on digital assets provides the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate responsibly.
Beyond its economic implications, the legislation reflects an understanding of blockchain’s potential to drive financial inclusion. Decentralized financial tools can reduce barriers for underbanked communities, empowering individuals and small businesses with access to innovative financial services. Pennsylvania’s proactive approach ensures that these benefits are accessible to all, positioning the state as a model for equitable digital asset adoption.
A New Blueprint For State-Led Innovation
The impact of Pennsylvania’s leadership extends far beyond its borders. In the absence of comprehensive federal regulation, states have emerged as laboratories for blockchain policy, testing innovative approaches to digital asset management. From Wyoming’s recognition of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to Florida’s integration of digital assets into its regulatory framework, state-led initiatives are shaping the future of the U.S. digital economy.
Pennsylvania’s efforts build on this momentum, offering a clear roadmap for other states. By fostering a crypto-friendly environment, the Commonwealth is not only boosting its own economic competitiveness but also contributing to a broader movement that could influence federal policy. As blockchain technology continues to redefine global finance, states that embrace innovation now will be well-positioned to lead in the years to come.
Stepping Into The Digital Future
Pennsylvania’s recent legislative efforts demonstrate a pragmatic approach to navigating the complexities of blockchain technology and digital assets. The passage of HB 2481 and the introduction of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act highlight the Commonwealth’s focus on creating a clear regulatory framework while fostering innovation and economic growth.
By addressing both opportunities and challenges in this rapidly evolving space, Pennsylvania offers a practical model for other states to consider. Its actions underscore the growing role of state governments in shaping the future of the digital economy and ensuring its benefits reach residents and businesses alike. As the legislative process continues, Pennsylvania’s leadership may serve as a valuable reference point for balancing innovation with inclusivity and economic resilience.
Pennsylvania
Philly City Commissioners don’t expect recount to change Senate race results
Representatives from both the Casey and McCormick campaigns will be given the opportunity to observe the recount process.
While the votes were being counted, Commissioner Lisa Deeley said McCormick’s win could easily have been a loss if more Philadelphians who came to the polls actually cast a vote in the race.
“Just 0.24% separate Bob Casey and Dave McCormick to determine who will represent Pennsylvania in the United States Senate for the next six years. That percentage translates to just 16,672 votes,” she said.
Deeley went on to say twice that number of voters didn’t care enough to go down the ballot to vote in the race for U.S. Senate.
“36,604 Philadelphia fans chose to under-vote the race. They just skipped over it and didn’t have their opinion counted,” she said.
Deeley could not give an explanation for why people came to vote for president, but chose not to vote in the Senate race.
“All of us in the political process, we need to do a better job to get the public to recognize the importance of the down ballot races so that we can have maximum voter participation from Philadelphia voters,” she said.
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