donald trump is stepping up warnings about <u+201c>rigged<u+201d> elections as he trails in polls and faces a mutiny in his own party. at two rallies monday in pennsylvania, the republican presidential nominee told thousands of supporters the election could be <u+201c>stolen from us.<u+201d> a wall street journal/nbc news/marist poll showed him trailing by 12 points in pennsylvania, which many experts consider a must-win state for him. the survey was taken before a parade of republicans turned their backs on mr. trump after a videotape was released showing him boasting in 2005 about making unwanted sexual advances. mr. trump<u+2019>s predictions of fraud are raising concerns among election officials. <u+201c>i think any secretary of state, democrat or republican, would echo my concern that the worst damage is to people<u+2019>s confidence,<u+201d> said denise merrill, a democrat and the top election official in connecticut who is president of the national association of secretaries of state. <u+201c>if people won<u+2019>t abide by the results of the election, that could have far-reaching consequences for our country.<u+201d> mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign is centered on an antiestablishment message skeptical of a range of polling, the media, even his own political party. interviews with trump supporters in florida suggest his message is getting through. glenn osborn, a 56-year-old waste-facility manager in panama city, fla., said he was haunted by ballot irregularities that emerged during the florida recount in the 2000 election between al gore and george w. bush. <u+201c>that was just a taste of what<u+2019>s to come in this election,<u+201d> he said as he waited for a trump rally to begin. jay hamilton, a retiree from destin, fla., is convinced election fraud is rampant across the country. as a county gop volunteer, he stands ready to help the trump campaign keep an eye out for fraud on election day. <u+201c>i<u+2019>ll be watching,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>i<u+2019>ll do anything they ask me to.<u+201d> at rallies and through social media, the trump campaign is recruiting poll watchers. the campaign didn<u+2019>t respond to questions about how many people have signed up so far. evidence of the type of election fraud mr. trump seems to be worried about<u+2014>unqualified people impersonating voters<u+2014>is scant. from 2002 to 2007, when the justice department was giving priority to election-crime enforcement, it obtained 86 total convictions, according to the national conference on state legislatures. a 2012 study by the government accountability office found no voter impersonation cases over the past decade. laws requiring voters to show photo identification and other requirements have proliferated since republicans took over a majority of state capitols in 2010. thirty-four states now request or require voters to show some form of identification at the polls<u+2014>including 10 that passed measures after 2012, according to the ncsl. since july, mr. trump has warned about potential voter fraud in televised interviews and at rallies in ohio, michigan and north carolina and pennsylvania, where a gop presidential nominee last won in 1988. <u+201c>i just hear such reports about philadelphia,<u+201d> he said monday in wilkes-barre, pa. <u+201c>i hear these horror shows and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken from us. and everybody knows what i am talking about.<u+201d> mr. trump has alluded to alleged voting improprieties before in philadelphia, where democrats outnumber republicans 7-1. in an august fox news interview, he cited reports about 59 voting districts in philadelphia<u+2014>known as divisions<u+2014>where 2012 gop nominee mitt romney didn<u+2019>t receive a single vote. some of those predominantly african-american and democratic districts included only a handful of republicans, according to politifact and factcheck.org, which both said those demographics made the vote tallies entirely plausible. <u+201c>there is no merit to donald trump<u+2019>s claims of widespread voter fraud in pennsylvania, and to suggest otherwise simply has no basis in fact,<u+201d> pennsylvania gov. tom wolf, who has endorsed democratic nominee hillary clinton, said tuesday. <u+201c>his attempts to delegitimize the election in pennsylvania are disgraceful and dangerous.<u+201d> joe defelice, the philadelphia director of the pennsylvania republican party, noted that four election officials were charged in 2015 with fraud for tampering with voting machines. <u+201c>is it widespread? i don<u+2019>t know, but it exists,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>donald trump is shedding light on something no one has wanted to shed light on for a long time.<u+201d> write to beth reinhard at beth.reinhard@wsj.com and janet hook at janet.hook@wsj.com
trump renews warning about <u+2018>stolen<u+2019> election - wsj
beth reinhard janet hook