How Trump is laying the groundwork to possibly challenge the 2024 election results

(WASHINGTON) — There is roughly a month left to go in the 2024 presidential race, yet Donald Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric to possibly challenge the outcome.

For months, he’s accused Democrats of cheating, threatened to prosecute election workers and falsely claimed noncitizens are being allowed in the country to cast ballots.

Trump’s also now telling his supporters that if he loses in November, it will be the country’s “last election” — the latest dark comment in his increasingly bleak and dystopian campaign rhetoric.

Asked for comment on his remarks, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News: “President Trump has always stated we need free and fair elections, or we won’t have a country.”

Here’s a closer look at what Trump has said to supporters on the trail in an apparent effort to sow doubt on the voting process.

Trump falsely accuses Democrats of cheating

“They cheat. That’s all they want to do is cheat. And when you see this, it’s the only way they’re gonna win,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin on Oct. 6. “And we can’t let that happen and we can’t let it happen again. We’re going to have no country.”

Trump’s claims that Democrats cheated in the previous election or are doing so in this race are baseless.

Trump’s allegations of fraud in the 2020 election were debunked by his own administration officials, legal challenges failed in the courts and recounts or audits conducted in narrowly-decided swing states all affirmed President Joe Biden’s victory.

In this same vein, he’s also accused Democrats of staging “coup” when Biden dropped out and Harris succeeded him. Harris received 99% of the delegate votes in the Democratic National Committee’s virtual roll call vote after Biden exited the race.

Top officials in key battleground states have said they are confident in the integrity of this election. Many have testified on Capitol Hill or at conferences on the steps they’ve taken to boost voter confidence and make the process more transparent.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, noting it conducts two audits after every election, told ABC News it was “confident in the integrity of county officials and election administrators across the Commonwealth, despite irresponsible statements that are not based in fact or supported by evidence.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently reiterated that the state’s elections are “secure.” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said “every valid vote will count, the election will be secure, the results will be accurate. Just like in 2020.”

Trump threatens to prosecute election workers if elected

In a post on his conservative social media site last month, Trump said if he is back in the White House, he will prosecute anyone he deems was involved in “unscrupulous behavior” in the 2024 election.

“It was a Disgrace to our Nation!” he wrote of the 2020 election. “Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

The prosecutions, he said, would extend to lawyers, donors, political operatives and election officials.

Election officials and experts told ABC News that Trump’s comments were “dangerous” given the heightened threat environment for election administrators and poll workers.

Trump falsely claims illegal immigrants are voting en masse

“Our elections are bad,” Trump said during the ABC News presidential debate on Sept. 10. “And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote. And that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal, and recorded instances of undocumented immigrants casting ballots are incredibly rare, according to officials and studies.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has recorded about two-dozen instances where noncitizens were penalized for voting between 2003 and 2023. Over that period of time, the foundation found just 1,500 proven instances of overall voter fraud despite billions of votes being cast.

The Brennan Center, following the 2016 general election, also found noncitizen voting to be virtually nonexistent. The center reported that election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes across 42 jurisdictions referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution — or 0.0001%.

Trump’s mixed messaging on mail-in ballots

Trump’s messaging on mail-in voting has been incredibly mixed. At times, he’s encouraged his supporters to vote by that method and in any other way possible — and voted himself by mail in 2020. Other times, however, he’s pushed a narrative that mail-in ballots are “corrupt” or not as secure.

“The elections are so screwed up. We have to get back in and we have to change it all,” Trump falsely said during a rally in Pennsylvania this past summer. “We want to go to paper ballots. We want to go to same-day voting. We want to go to citizenship papers. And we want to go to voter ID. It’s very simple. We want to get rid of mail-in voting.”

There are a number of safeguards in place to protect the voting process, including mail-in voting, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agency has set out to combat misinformation about elections on its website.

Trump’s also targeted the U.S. Postal Service, claiming the agency may not be prepared for the election — which prompted significant pushback from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who flatly said such comments are “wrong.”

More recently, Trump amplified false claims that a significant percentage of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania (considered a key state for both campaigns) were “fraudulent.” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro pushed back that mail ballots hadn’t been sent out yet when Trump made that claim and that the state conducts two audits after each election to ensure results are legitimate.

Trump still won’t accept he lost 2020 election

Trump continues to claim that the 2020 was stolen from him. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the top Republican on Capitol Hill, have also recently declined to say Trump lost that election.

“We won, we won, we did win,” Trump falsely told rallygoers in Michigan on Oct. 3. “It was a rigged election.”

President Biden recently stressed he believed the election would be “free and fair” but voiced worry it would not be “peaceful.” The concern, he said, came from Trump and Vance’s recent comments.

“They haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election. So, I am concerned about what they’re going to do,” Biden said on Oct. 4.

At times, Trump and members of his campaign have said he will accept the 2024 results so long as it is a free and fair election.

“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” he said during the CNN presidential debate, declining to outrightly say he would accept the outcome.

That didn’t stop him, however, from challenging the 2020 election results despite no evidence of widespread fraud or wrongdoing.

ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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