“They’re fighting hard to steal this damn thing. … Look what’s happening in your state, every day they talk about extending working hours; Has anyone heard these things?” Trump said Sunday in Lititz, Pennsylvania, that he was visibly disappointed. “We should have one-day voting and paper voting.” He added: “It’s so embarrassing and I’m the only one talking about it because everyone is afraid to talk about it and then they accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist. … The people who should be imprisoned are those who cheated in these terrible elections we have in our country.”

“I would love to win the popular vote with them cheating,” he told a crowd in Salem, Virginia, on Saturday. Let them cheat, because they do it, they do it very well, they are very professional. “But I think we have a really good chance of winning the popular vote.” Later, at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, a pre-recorded message from Trump encouraged attendees to vote and “keep your eyes open” because these people want to cheat and they are cheating. And frankly that’s the only thing they do well.”

And on Friday night in Milwaukee, he falsely claimed he had won Wisconsin twice, saying “those are minor details.” Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 but lost the state to Biden in 2020.

Trump’s preemptive warnings about election fraud are part of a pattern dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign, despite no evidence of widespread fraud; Trump also claimed there was a “rigged” election before he won.

But Trump’s latest comments are renewing concerns among election experts who fear a repeat of the 2020 election, in which the former president’s claims of widespread fraud resulted in a pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During Sunday’s rally, Trump also said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House.

This election cycle, Trump has encouraged his supporters to make “the election too big to rig,” a slogan that implies the 2020 election was stolen from him. Trump has also set the stage for major disappointment among his supporters if the election results are anything other than a victory for him. He has repeatedly claimed that he is ahead in the polls and suggested that the only way Democrats can win is by cheating. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, leads Trump nationally by nearly 2 percentage points, according to The Washington Post’s average of high-quality public polls.

Trump has not committed to accepting the 2024 election results, saying he would only do so “if there is a fair election” and claiming the only way he could lose was if there was fraud. Harris said she was committed to free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit organization that aims to build confidence in elections, said Trump’s claims have gone nowhere in court but fuel a false belief among many of his supporters that fraud is widespread.

Even though polls showed an extremely tight race, Trump’s rhetoric convinced many of his supporters that his victory was inevitable, Becker said.

“You can imagine the shock some Trump supporters might feel if Trump loses, and how that shock could turn into anger and potentially even violence in the post-election period,” he said. In 2020, “his allies targeted his supporters against public officials, and many were forced to go to alternative locations to stay safe. They had to ensure security. They had to deal with doxing. … Now we have seen many of his supporters lie about the election for another four years.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Claire Zunk praised “President Trump’s unprecedented election integrity operation…committed to defending the law and protecting every legal vote,” in an emailed statement, but neither she nor a Trump campaign spokeswoman said Trump He did not directly address ‘s implication: “Cheating” can change the race.

Harris urged Americans on Sunday to ignore signals from Trump that he might prematurely declare victory on Tuesday night, arguing they were aimed at discouraging people from voting.

“This is a distraction from the fact that we have free and fair elections in our country and we support them. “This is what we did in 2020,” Harris told reporters. “He lost, and the systems in place for this election in 2024 have integrity. These are good systems and the vote of the people will determine the outcome of this election. And everyone should know that their votes are the power that will determine the outcome of the election and their votes will be valid.”

In recent days, Trump has focused his claims of voter fraud on Pennsylvania, a state that nonpartisan election experts see as a near-win state for both him and Harris. Harris leads the state by less than a point, according to The Post’s polling average.

At a recent rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed: “They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster.” And in a social media post he claimed: “Pennsylvania is cheating and getting caught on a scale rarely seen before. REPORT THE FRAUD TO THE AUTHORITIES. Law enforcement must act NOW!”

Democratic officials and voting rights advocates strongly dispute Trump’s claims. Lancaster County election officials said they recently identified nearly 2,500 voter registration applications as potentially fraudulent and local law enforcement is investigating them.

Trump falsely claimed that ballots had been filled out with the same pen; In Pennsylvania, ballots were not opened until Election Day. Officials say the detection of faulty registration applications shows that the system is working and that they will not vote for ineligible voters. Voting rights advocates say the questionable applications are likely the mistake of a sloppy campaigner and not a nefarious plot to steal the election.

The Trump campaign and the RNC are pushing allegations of voter fraud and voter suppression as part of an effort to “ensure a safe and secure election for ALL Americans, regardless of who they voted for,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. , said in an emailed statement.

Experts say some problems are inevitable during any election, but they are almost always resolved and affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of votes cast.

Tammy Patrick, director of programs for the National Association of Election Officials, said rhetoric like Trump’s threatens the ability of many Americans to accept the results of a free and fair election. He said his language further erodes trust in the democratic process and paves the way for violence if the outcome is not what some want it to be.

“This has happened before; we all watched TV on January 6th,” Patrick said. “We have all seen with our own eyes what the manifestation of this kind of discourse is. “A lot of people right now (election officials) are holding their breath to see what happens in the coming weeks.”

He said American public officials and leaders need to be patient during the vote counting process, which could take several days. In Maricopa County, home to most Arizona voters, officials said it could take 10 to 13 days for workers to process ballots.

Colby Itkowitz and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.