The history behind Trump’s play on the theme of voter fraud is long, beginning with his refusal as a candidate in 2016 to commit to accepting the results of the presidential election. He suggested that fraud could be rampant and would be the reason if he lost, and so he should not have to concede. After the election, he insisted that the margin of his defeat in the popular vote resulted from massive illegal voting for Hillary Clinton. He then established a commission co-chaired by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to study voter fraud, but after it failed to turn up evidence of illegal voting and was successfully sued by one of its own members for operating illegally, it was abruptly disbanded.

Read: Inside Trump’s voter-fraud crusade

Now, in these recent statements, Trump shows that he will persist in making these claims. He is, in fact, escalating. He is not just repeating a generally stated, if still wholly irresponsible, concern with voting fraud. He is advising the public, in concrete, ostensibly fact-based detail, precisely how that fraud is taking place.

This president contends against all documented evidence that voter-impersonation fraud is widespread, andthat it is accomplished by voters who leave the polling place, return to their cars, and “put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.” This statement, made in an interview with The Daily Caller, received a lot of attention. There was more. He added the additional claim that he lost New Hampshire in the general election because “thousands of people came up and voted from a very liberal part of Massachusetts.” He related how an aide supposedly told him: “You won New Hampshire easily except they have tremendous numbers of buses coming up.” Trump goes on: “They’re pouring up by the hundreds, buses of people getting out, voting.” The election should have been “recalled,” he concluded.

His statements are false. Trump’s move from a generalized allegation of fraud to these more specific lies is not just a case of tall tales growing ever taller. As president, he is well aware that his statements carry weight, and the more specific the claim, the more weight he can expect for them to carry. But it is not only the specificity of these lies that distinguishes them from routine political claims. It is their subject matter: the integrity of the electoral process. Trump’s message is that the public cannot have confidence that the system is registering an honest vote.

As the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, the right to vote “is of the most fundamental significance under our constitutional structure.” The exercise of this right depends on confidence in the integrity of the process. In one case decided in 2006, the Court paid particular attention to the damage done to the right to vote by the fear of voter fraud. “Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised,” the Court affirmed. Then, in a later case involving Indiana’s interest in voter-ID requirements, the Court emphasized the “independent significance” of maintaining “public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.”