Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Sunday that the upcoming election could be rigged in favor of Democrats if “dead people” in major metropolitan areas turn out to vote.
“I’m sorry, dead people generally vote for Democrats rather than Republicans,” Giuliani, a top supporter of Donald Trump, told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “You want me to [say] that I think the election in Philadelphia and Chicago is going to be fair? I would have to be a moron to say that.”
The former prosecutor recalled an election in Chicago in which he said the names of people who had died were attached to more than 700 ballots. Sixty dead people voted in his own mayoral race, Giuliani claimed.
“I can’t sit here and tell you that they don’t cheat,” Giuliani said of Democratic voters. “And I know that because they control the polling places in these areas. There are no Republicans, and it’s very hard to get people there who will challenge votes. So what they do is, they leave dead people on the rolls and then they pay people to vote as dead people, four, five, six, seven times.”
He continued, “I’ve found very few situations where Republicans cheat. They don’t control the inner cities the way Democrats do.”
Giuliani’s charges mirror what Trump has been saying since he secured the GOP nomination and began to fall behind Clinton in battleground state polls. The Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly urged voters, particularly in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to monitor polling stations on Nov. 8 to ensure there is no election fraud.
Still, while Trump and Giuliani have suggested that Democrats could rig the election by cheating in certain areas, Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence has said he and his running mate will “absolutely accept the result of the election” next month.
“Look, the American people will speak in an election that will culminate on November the 8,” Pence told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd on Sunday.
