The Donald Trump campaign held a press conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Eric Trump and Rudy Guliani claimed voter fraud is taking place in Pennsylvania.
Trump said officials would not allow the Republican observer to watch as ballots were counted.
“They put him behind a fence, 40-50 yards away where they actually can’t see the counting happening — guys this is fraud. This is absolute fraud,” Trump said. “We’ve seen it in Philadelphia before. They’re trying to make a mockery of the election of this country. My father is up by almost half a million votes in this state with 86 percent reported and plenty of red counties left to go. We are going to win Pennsylvania, but they’re trying to cheat us out of it because they know it’s their only path to victory.”
The campaign is going to file a suit in Pennsylvania. Trump said it is the last thing the campaign wanted to do.
“But this is rampant corruption and it can’t happen,” he said. “It simply can’t happen. It’s not fair. This isn’t democracy.”
Guliani expressed sadness that such a situation is taking place in Philadelphia. The lawsuit, he said, addresses mail-in ballots. Mail-in voting has long been considered the most susceptible form of voting to voter fraud — according to the New York Times.
“We were supposed to be allowed by law to observe the counting of the ballots,” Guliani said. “Now, observe means, to any intelligent person, being able o look at. The way it’s interpreted by the Democrat, crooked machine of Philadelphia, is that the observers can be 20 or 30 feet away, never able to see the ballot itself. Never able to see if it was properly postmarked, properly addressed, properly signed. All the things that often lead to disqualification of ballots, or make it very easy to dump 50,000 totally fraudulent ballots because they’re not observed. This went on for 20 hours while all of you thought there was some sort of legitimate though going on here in Philadelphia, it was totally illegitimate.”
Giuliani called the Democrat judge who heard the initial complaint a political hack who doesn’t know the meaning of the word observe.
“Not a single Republican has been able to look at any one of these mail-in ballots,” Giuliani said. “They could be from Mars as far as we’re concerned. Or they could be from the Democratic National Committee.”
Giuliani talked about the reputation of Philadelphia, which includes cases of voter fraud.
“But this goes way beyond any of that,” he said.
There is a similar lawsuit in Wisconsin, he added.
“At 3 o’clock in the morning, about 120,000 ballots appeared,” Giuliani said. “Well, we have no idea if they really are ballots. We have no idea if they’re signed, if they’re postmarked properly, if it isn’t just the same person who submitted 100,000 ballots. And they call got counted. This is the way they intend to win.”
Giuliani said there are similar situations in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.
“This whole new thing that never happened before in our country, mail-in ballots, which has been a cause of real concern for everyone because they can easily be fraudulent. But one of the things the law attaches is the right for both parties to observe the ballot, the way we do with absentee ballots,” he said. “We never got a chance to look at a single one of them.”
The observer estimated about 120,000 ballots went through that process. He wasn’t allowed to see a single ballot.
“That’s 120,000 ballots that should be just taken out of the count,” Guiliani said. “This is a concerted effort of the crooks that run the Democrat Party. And you know these big-city machines are crooked.”
Guiliani vowed not to let the alleged cheaters get away with it.
“We are going to continue the lawsuit here, we’re going to bring a second one, and then we’re going to bring a federal one,” he said. “Quite possibly, we’ll do a national lawsuit and really expose the corruption of the Democrat Party.
“This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. This comes when you think you have so much power, and you own the media, that you can do anything you want. Well, sorry, we’re going to fight for the people.”
Pam Bondi, the former Attorney General of Florida, said the campaign has video of officials putting up a police barricade around the parameter and keeping poll watchers back “at least” 30 feet.
“There is a gentleman there by the name of Seth Bluestein who is an assistant to the city commissioner and he is wearing a badge the size of a baseball,” Bondi said. “And as far as I know, he’s not a sworn law enforcement officer.r So it looks like intimidation to me with a police barricade and a man wearing a huge badge around his neck. He told them they can’t come any closer. He said the reason was because they can’t interfere with the process and then something about COVID.”
Bondi said there was no problem staying six feet away, but they were not allowed that close. After poll watchers used binoculars, they were shut down until being told they could use them.
“So, that’s a concession that we are allowed that we are allowed to observe the ballot,” Bondi said.
Jeremy Mercer, the individual who was serving as the Trump Campaign poll watcher, also spoke.
“We’re there supposedly observing, but we can’t see,” he said.
