Giuliani: 650,000 Votes Were Counted Unlawfully in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh

Rudy Giuliani alleged on Nov. 11 that roughly 650,000 ballots unlawful ballots were cast in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Giuliani: 650,000 Votes Were Counted Unlawfully in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington on July 1, 2020. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Isabel van Brugen
Updated:

Rudy Giuliani, one of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, alleged on Nov. 11 that roughly 650,000 unlawful ballots were cast in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Speaking with Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs, Giuliani claimed that “almost none” of the hundreds of thousands of ballots were observed by Republican poll watchers. State election law requires the presence of poll watchers from all parties.

“We now are up to a count of about 650,000 ballots that are unlawful ballots that were cast in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,” he said. “What’s being said in the mass media, that we have no evidence, is a complete, absolute lie, just like they’ve been lying for years.”

On Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said in a statement that ballot watchers from all parties have had observers throughout the process and that “any insinuation otherwise is a lie.”

A few days earlier, Giuliani said that the Trump campaign may have sufficient evidence to change the election results in the state of Pennsylvania.

He told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that lawsuits being filed by Trump’s reelection campaign might show that as many as 900,000 invalid ballots were cast in the battleground state.

According to an unofficial vote count from the Pennsylvania Department of State, Biden has received 3.35 million votes to Trump’s 3.31 million votes. Percentage-wise, Biden has 49.7 percent, compared to Trump’s 49.1 percent.

(L) Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images); (R) President Donald Trump speaks on election night in the East Room of the White House in Washington, in the early morning hours of Nov. 4, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(L) Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images); (R) President Donald Trump speaks on election night in the East Room of the White House in Washington, in the early morning hours of Nov. 4, 2020. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“I think we have enough to change Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania election was a disaster,” Giuliani said, responding to a question from the host about whether the evidence is enough to change the fate of the presidential election.

“We have people that observed people being pushed out of the polling place. We have people who were suggested to vote the other way and shown how to do it. I’m giving you the big picture,” he said.

While mail-in ballots were being counted, GOP Pittsburgh observers were “kept out of the room or kept away from the room” for a period of 24 hours, Giuliani alleged.

“Even though we went to court and we were allowed to move six feet closer, the Democrat machine people moved the counting place six feet further away. This is documented on videotape. There are upwards of 50 witnesses,” he continued.

Mail-in ballots are counted in Lehigh County, Pa., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters)
Mail-in ballots are counted in Lehigh County, Pa., on Nov. 4, 2020. Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters
This Monday, Trump’s campaign team launched a new lawsuit aiming to stop the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, alleging that Democratic and Republican counties did not follow the same rules regarding defective mail-in ballots, and that Republican observers could not see the ballot counting process from a meaningfully close distance.

“If you were a Democrat in Philadelphia, you were allowed to work outside the bounds of the restrictions on fixing defective ballots, sometimes referred to as ‘curing,'” Matt Morgan, general counsel to the Trump campaign, explained during a Monday press conference. “But if you were in Republican counties of the state of Pennsylvania, you were not allowed to do that because they were strictly following the text of the statute in Pennsylvania.”

The lawsuit also includes a postal worker from Erie County who claimed that he had heard his supervisors talking about illegally backdating ballots that arrived late so that they appeared legitimate. His claim was also cited by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in a letter to the Justice Department calling for a federal investigation.
GQ Pan contributed to this report.
Isabel van Brugen
Isabel van Brugen
Reporter
Isabel van Brugen is an award-winning journalist. She holds a master's in newspaper journalism from City, University of London.
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