IN Michigan's Macomb County, the Republican head of the board that will certify November's election results had in 2020 called on former United States president Donald Trump to fight to stay in power after his election loss.
In North Carolina's Henderson County, a Republican election board member emailed legislators in August to claim, without evidence, that Democrats were flooding the state with illegal votes.
And in Pennsylvania, considered a must-win for Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, Republican officials in six counties have voted against certifying results since 2020.
Four years after Trump tried to overturn his election loss, his false conspiracy theories about voter fraud have become an article of faith among Republican members of local election boards that certify results.
Their rise raises the chances that pro-Trump officials in multiple jurisdictions will delay or sow doubt over the Nov 5 presidential election if Trump loses.
Reuters examined election boards in the five largest counties in each of the seven battleground states that are likely to determine the election's outcome.
It found that nearly half — or 16 of the 35 county election boards — had at least one member who has expressed pro-Trump scepticism about the electoral process, including theories that Trump won the 2020 election, doubts about the integrity of voting machines or beliefs about widespread fraud in mail ballots.
The tallies are based on a review of public records, social media and news accounts as well as interviews with election officials.
In all, Reuters documented 37 election sceptics on the election boards of the five most populous counties in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — including 20 who have voted in the past to not certify results.
Many smaller county boards in those states also include election deniers. Wisconsin was the only swing state whose big county election boards appeared free of such sceptics.
A more likely scenario is that local delays cascade to the state level, ultimately resulting in states missing the Dec 11 deadline set by federal law for states to submit election results to Washington.
That could provide an opening for Trump and his Republican allies in Congress to try to overturn results if he loses, say Democrats, election officials in swing states and voting-rights specialists at legal non-profits.
Trump's efforts to undo his 2020 loss culminated in his supporters' bloody attack of Jan 6, 2021, on the US Capitol.
They attempted to block certification of Joe Biden's victory. Trump still won't admit that he lost in 2020 and has refused to commit to accepting the results this year.
Congress sought to stave off any recurrence by passing a law in 2022 tightening the certification process.
However, the question of whether the winner becomes president depends on a new Congress sworn in on Jan 3 and its ability to withstand any pressure to overturn a state's results.
If Republicans win control of both chambers, they could have the votes to reject some state results and ultimately award Trump the White House.
The Republican National Committee is now controlled by Trump loyalists, including a daughter-in-law. It has recruited 200,000 polls watchers and workers to monitor and combat what Trump claims, without evidence, will be an attempt by Democrats to steal votes.
The prevalence of election sceptics in positions of authority over the vote reflects how deeply the "Big Lie" that the 2020 contest was stolen from Trump has permeated the party, said Lindsey Miller of Informing Democracy, a non-profit that is studying threats to election certification.
The RNC said it had filed more than 100 suits against local and state authorities to challenge elements of the voting process.
People entering Bad Axe, a town in Michigan's Huron County, are greeted by a 1.8m wooden Trump sign put up by Luke Deming, vice chair of the county Republican Party and husband of Kellie Deming, a member of Huron's canvassing board.
Kellie this year declined to vote to certify results in her county, which favoured Trump by a 39-point margin in 2020.
She felt she couldn't trust local election clerks even though the board's other three members voted to certify.
She's unsure if she'll certify this November's results, she added.
Asked about the 2020 election, she asserted that Biden is not really president.
"President Trump is still president," she said, and hung up without an explanation.
The writers are from Reuters
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times