Donald Trump's Proposal to Monitor Voters Sparks Concerns

Donald Trump's call for people to "guard the vote" in 2024 has sparked concern about potential violence in next year's election.

The former president, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, repeated his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020 at a rally in Ankeny, Iowa, on Saturday.

He used those claims as a justification for the call, telling supporters to "go into" Democratic-run cities that he has previously disparaged to "guard the vote" in 2024.

"The most important part of what's coming up is to guard the vote," he told his supporters. "You should go into Detroit and you should go into Philadelphia and you should go into some of these places, Atlanta, and you should go into some of these places and we've got to watch those votes when they come in."

Trump singled out the biggest cities in battleground states Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, all of which are Democratic strongholds that were at the center of his false claims of voter fraud in 2020.

Philadelphia's top elections official issued a statement hitting back at Trump's comments, saying they are likely aiming to "sow doubt" about election results.

"This is nothing new, Trump says these things before every election, and I expect we will hear more of this over the next year," City Commissioner Lisa Deeley said in the statement, noting Trump's comments in 2020 about Philadelphia.

"I can only assume it is to try and sow doubt about the validity of the election results."

Deeley said Philadelphia's elections were "completely fair and accurate" in 2016 and 2020 "and that is what we will continue to deliver in 2024."

Nick Custodio, a deputy city commissioner, told Newsweek that Trump is "just reading from the same playbook as 2016 and 2020."

"We have been through this before and plan to once again deliver Philadelphians safe, free, and accurate elections in 2024," he said.

He pointed to Deeley's comment to the Philadelphia Inquirer: "When a former president is spreading disinformation, it's up to us to be truth tellers."

The comments also sparked criticism on social media, with some saying Trump's rhetoric would incite violence on election day.

"He's priming the country for violence on Election Day," Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist, wrote that Trump "is literally inciting more crime in a county he is already facing criminal charges in. But I guess he also does that daily as a whole with the country he is facing criminal charges in, too."

Trump is facing charges in four criminal cases, two of which accuse him of seeking to subvert the results of the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Others noted that Trump had listed cities with large Black populations as examples of where fraud would happen in 2024.

"He might just as well have said 'watch Black voters' because that's clearly what he meant," wrote Joyce Vance, an attorney and former federal prosecutor.

Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign and President Joe Biden's campaign for comment via email.

Update 12/4/23, 9 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Nick Custodio.