Officials in a Central Pennsylvania county were deeply unsettled by a request from the Trump campaign last week for details about election security protocols, including specific information about the storage and transportation of ballots. The request, first reported by The Sentinel of Carlisle, Pa., was sent last Tuesday to officials in Cumberland County, which includes Carlisle and sits just outside Harrisburg, the state capital. On behalf of Donald J. Trump for President, the email began, going on to instruct officials to answer more than two dozen questions regarding your offices compliance with existing statutes and law and insisting on a response by 5 p.m. the next day. The questions included where ballots and voting machines would be stored after polls closed including address and room number the names of people who were transporting them, the security (if any) provided during transport and the manner in which ballots and voting machines would be secured. Ive been here 16 years and Ive never seen a request anywhere like that, said Gary Eichelberger, the Republican chairman of Cumberland Countys Board of Commissioners. Thea McDonald, the Trump campaigns deputy press secretary, said that the campaign has made similar requests of many local officials as part of the Trump campaigns efforts to ensure a free and fair election. Given that more than 500,000 mail ballots were tossed out in this years primaries, we must look into these critical issues, she added, referring to the 534,000 mail ballots that were rejected across 23 states. The information weve asked for includes standard election transparency details, and election officials should have the answers on hand. When did transparency become a bad thing? The request came as legal challenges to Pennsylvanias election system and policies have multiplied down the homestretch of a race for perhaps the single most hotly contested state in the country, where Joseph R. Biden Jr. has held a consistent polling lead over President Trump. Mr. Trump suggested over the weekend that he would challenge the states election results before vote counting even finishes. Cumberland County is one of the counties in Pennsylvania that will not begin counting mail-in ballots until Wednesday. In a news conference on Monday morning, Pennsylvanias top elections official, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, suggested that the request was improper. No county should provide any election security information to any third party ever, Ms. Boockvar said, adding that she had been in touch with the F.B.I. about the request.