Opinion
Trump Issues First Call to Arms Over Election Fraud Conspiracies

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
Fri, October 25, 2024


Donald Trump and his allies have suggested for months that the 2024 election will be “stolen,” much like they did in the 2020 cycle, prepping unfounded claims ahead of time that the election will be undermined by “noncitizen” voters, overseas ballot programs, and mail-in voting.

But on Friday, Trump officially called it, writing a “cease and desist” on Truth Social that effectively announced the Republican presidential nominee already believes that the November election is rigged—mere days into early voting.

“CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump posted. “It was a Disgrace to our Nation!”



Trump fleetingly acknowledged in September that he did, factually, lose the 2020 election. But his insistence on Friday that he would definitely win the 2024 race came with a threat: that anyone working for the other side of the aisle—from attorneys to election officials and donors—will face consequences when he does.

“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,” Trump wrote. “We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s allies have concretely worked to skew election results in battleground states. In Georgia, a pro-Trump state election board issued prohibitive regulations that would have made it significantly more difficult for the state to find people willing to volunteer for the increasingly arduous job.

Trump praised the MAGA members of Georgia’s board days before the August move, describing Dr. Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King as “pit bulls fighting for victory.”

Those regulations included mandating that poll workers hand-count ballots after they were electronically filed, and granting local election officials the authority to refuse to certify the results. Both of those rules were thrown out by a judge earlier this month.

Meanwhile, some of the most powerful conservatives in the federal legislature, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, have refused to state on the record that they will unequivocally accept the 2024 presidential election results. In an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press earlier this month, Johnson wavered on whether he would do his job to certify the results regardless of who won, insisting that he would only do so “if the election is free and fair and legal.

“I think Donald J. Trump is your next president, and that can’t happen soon enough,” Johnson said at the time.