GOP secretaries of state swat down election conspiracies while Trump sows doubts

• Trump's recent claims are reminiscent of those from the 2020 campaign that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, for which Trump was impeached the second time.

The big picture: Election officials have had to take extraordinary security measures this year in the face of mounting threats stoked by Trump's baseless claims that the voting system is rigged against him.

• Republicans across the country have already filed over 100 lawsuits over various voting and election procedures.
• While Trump has softened his previous aversion to early voting, he has attacked overseas and military voters and the U.S. Postal Service, arguing the latter can't be trusted to deliver ballots.

The intrigue: Trump admitted last month that there had actually been no evidence of election fraud in 2024, but hours later reverted to pushing baseless claims of cheating.

• This has left some Republican state officials to try and combat the claims themselves.

Pennsylvania

Trump took to Truth Social in the final week of the race to push election conspiracies in Pennsylvania, arguably the most critical swing state on the electoral map.

• "Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES," Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
• Lancaster County election officials said last week they had identified "incidents of suspected voter registration fraud" for around 2,500 applicants.
• Trump on Monday claimed Lancaster County was caught with "fake ballots and forms," even though officials hadn't alleged that any of the potentially problematic materials were votes.

State of play: Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt (R) attempted to shoot down cheating claims during a media briefing Wednesday.

• "Non-partisan election officials are doing their jobs across Pennsylvania and they are working very hard to ensure we have free, fair, safe and secure elections," Schmidt said.
• Schmidt told Axios last month that he remains deeply concerned how many voters still believe debunked election conspiracies.

Georgia

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) sounded the alarm about election disinformation Thursday after a video about alleged voter fraud went viral.

• The video purportedly showed a Haitian immigrant in Georgia claiming to have voted multiple times, Raffensperger said in a statement.
• "This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation ... it is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of" the election, he added.

Kentucky

In Kentucky, Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) has long been lauded as a fierce critic of election denialism within the GOP.

• A viral video earlier this week claimed a ballot-marking machine located in Kentucky's Laurel County wouldn't let a voter select Trump as their presidential pick and was incorrectly attributing their vote to Vice President Harris, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.
• Adams took to X Thursday to debunk the claim, saying that "there is no 'vote switching.'"
• "The voter confirmed that her ballot was correctly printed as marked for the candidate of her choice,' he added, urging voters to get their information "from legitimate sources, not TikTok."

Flashback: Earlier this year, Adams was awarded the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for "expanding voting rights and standing up for free and fair elections despite party opposition and death threats from election deniers."

Go deeper: Trump preps catalog of "cheating" claims for potential election loss