Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly preparing challenges to 2022 midterm elections, raising baseless claims of voter fraud that fuelled his failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The former president has reportedly convened a series of in-person meetings and conference calls with allies and officials in battleground states to prepare for legal challenges to upcoming elections that could determine the balance of power in Congress ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Pro-Trump factions, right-wing legal groups and GOP activists have attended meetings coordinated by the former president to discuss “scorched-earth legal tactics” that could throw elections into chaos, according to Rolling Stone, citing four people familiar with the meetings.
Last month, Mr Trump convened a group of allies, including former Trump-era White House aides and Pennsylvania election officials, to his Trump Tower in Manhattan with instructions to “recruit and train election observers and a team of attorneys to oversee historically problematic precincts” in the state, according to the report.
Voters in the swing state – which was central to the former president’s spurious legal bid to overturn election results after his loss in 2020 – will decide on a closely watched US Senate race between current Lt Governor John Fetterman and GOP candidate Mehmet Oz.
They also will determine whether Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro or Doug Mastriano, a prominent far-right election denier, will be the state’s next governor.
According to the outlet, if the Senate race is too close to call, or if ballot counting is not completed on Election Day, the former president is prepared to launch a similarly dubious legal effort to cast doubt on its legitimacy as he did leading up to and after 2020 elections.
A source for Rolling Stone reportedly characterised the effort as a “dress rehearsal for Trump 2024.”
Hogan Gidley, a former Trump White House aide who now vice chairs the Trump-aligned Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute, told Rolling Stone that “it’s important to prepare for legal fights that will inevitably arise.”
“We’ve been seeding efforts across the country in important states … [because] having people on the ground locally is key to these efforts – because if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” he said.
Mr Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden in 2020. Before a single ballot was cast in that year’s elections, Mr Trump suggested the results would be “stolen” from him, bogus claims he continues to amplify at his rallies, in media appearances and on social media, despite a lack of evidence, multiple court rulings against him, and attempts to debunk them from people working in his own administration and campaigns.
But those claims are now embedded into mainstream Republican campaigns, with a majority of candidates in 2022 midterms rejecting or questioning 2020 results.
A parallel effort driven by the same fraudulent narratives and right-wing interest groups has seen state lawmakers file – and pass – dozens of bills that make it more difficult to vote and hand control of election administration to partisan officials.
Election officials and voting rights organisations have warned that false claims of fraud and election-related misinformation deliberately casting doubt on the nation’s electoral process risk undermining confidence in elections and could pose a grave threat to American democracy.
The allegations are also fueling historic waves of harassment and threats of violence against election workers.
Federal law enforcement agencies have reviewed hundreds of threats nationwide against people involved with elections.
The FBI and US Department of Justice have identified Pennsylvania as one of the top states for threats to election workers, according to Axios. Nearly 60 per cent of threats observed by election workers were in states that experienced election challenges, according to a report from a Justice Department task force.
