Pennsylvania quickly emerged on Tuesday as a hot spot for election disinformation and bogus claims of voter fraud. The vast majority of posts on X about election fraud were focused on the swing state, according to an analysis by PeakMetrics, an analytics company.
Those claims have ricocheted around the internet as influencers and users on X, Truth Social and other platforms shared them to millions of views, sowing confusion even as election officials worked to refute them.
The polls had not even closed yet in Pennsylvania when former President Donald J. Trump declared that voter fraud could taint the results. Citing no specific cases or anecdotes, he declared there was “a lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia,” to his more than 8 million followers on Truth Social, an online social media platform owned by his media company.
Philadelphia’s chief law enforcement body was quick to reply: Larry Krasner, the city’s district attorney, issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump’s comments had “no factual basis.”
“If Donald J. Trump has any facts to support his wild allegations, we want them now. Right now,” Mr. Krasner wrote on X. “We are not holding our breath.”
Pennsylvania is seen as pivotal to both candidates’ chances of winning the presidency.
More than 60 percent of posts discussing election fraud in battleground states on X focused on Pennsylvania, according to an analysis of about 25,000 posts on the platform by PeakMetrics. The second-most discussed state, North Carolina, was included in about 9 percent of posts.
Election Fraud Posts on X, by State Mentioned
On X, nearly 60 percent of posts discussing election fraud in battleground states on Tuesday were focused on Pennsylvania.