Trump’s Talk of Prosecution Rattles Election Officials

Donald J. Trump’s escalating calls to investigate and prosecute election officials he sees as “corrupt” are sounding alarms among democracy experts and the local and state workers preparing to run elections and tally millions of votes across the country.

In recent social media posts, Mr. Trump has said that election officials “involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.” The November election, he added, “will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

On its face, the statements are promises to enforce the law. But coming from Mr. Trump, a politician who has repeatedly claimed to see corruption and fraud where there is no evidence of either and who as president pressured law enforcement officials to act on his complaints, the words raise the prospect that government officials could be investigated and prosecuted for conducting a fair election.

In his refusal to accept his defeat in 2020, Mr. Trump already has accused election officials of working against him, calling them out by name on social media and spreading falsehoods about their work.

Democracy experts said the talk of prosecution had troubling parallels. Such threats are far more likely in new nations, post-communist states or places that are “struggling in the shadows between democracy and authoritarianism,” said Larry Diamond, who studies democracies around the world as a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

“You won’t find instances in the contemporary world of a mature and stable and even faintly liberal democracy where a major presidential candidate is making these kinds of threats,” he said. “It’s just bizarre and unprecedented.”