The chairman of the Philadelphia Republican party Tuesday stoked fears over voter fraud, claiming court-appointed poll workers who support Donald Trump are being disenfranchised.
“Oh it's happening,” Joseph J DeFelice told MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff, referring to Trump’s premonition that elections in Philadelphia are rigged. “Everything they said we were going to do, they are actually doing. They’re intimidating, they’re suppressing, they’re disenfranchising—it’s getting ridiculous.”
Asked to provide specific examples of how the election is rigged, DeFelice said 40 election board workers—“court-appointed officials”—are being “evicted.”
“They’re telling them them ‘don’t come back, don’t come in here, we don't want Republicans in here,’’ he claimed. “These people are scared to go back and vote, so they are disenfranchising those people's votes.”
DeFelice went on to claim there were “votes on the machine before the polls opened” and “dozens and dozens [of people] complaining of improper electioneering—people going into the booth with people, unasked, and pressing buttons without filling out the proper forms.”
Asked about the Trump campaign’s ill-fated lawsuit over polls in Nevada, DeFelice said the Philadelphia GOP “will leave it up to the attorneys.”
“To be honest with you, I mean there’s are a lot of shenanigans going on,” he continued. “We’ve had close elections in the past and I’d hate to see this one get stolen.”
