Voter fraud? 2,500 Pennsylvania County Voter Registration Forms Marked; criminal investigations are ongoing

The forms arrived at the Lancaster County election office last Monday just before the state’s deadline for registration and appeared to be part of a larger effort to register people, officials said Friday. Some had false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic information.

Two other unnamed counties received similar requests and were asked to review them, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said at a news conference. She said poll workers “noticed that numerous applications had similarities,” but officials did not specify the volume of suspicious applications or indicate how many applications had already been fully investigated.

“At this point it appears to be an organized effort,” said Adams, an elected Republican. “But of course it is an ongoing investigation. And we will see who exactly took part and how far up it goes.”

The applications were separated during the investigation to prevent ballots from being sent to or cast by people until they were deemed valid. A battle is underway for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes as polls suggest the state’s presidential contest is a close race.

“The fact is we have contained this,” Lancaster Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican and chairman of the Board of Elections, said at the news conference. “That is not right. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. And we found it, and we’re going to take care of it.”

Adams and county election board members did not say who submitted the forms or who they may have worked with.

D’Agostino said the petitions were not limited to a single party and were collected from various locations in majority-Republican Lancaster.

The Pennsylvania Department of State issued a statement Friday praising election officials “for their diligent work in uncovering this potential fraud and educating law enforcement.” The state attorney general’s office, which was also contacted by Lancaster officials, declined to comment.

About three out of five applications that have been fully investigated so far have had problems, Adams said. Others of the 2,500 applications have been confirmed as correct and are being processed as usual, she said.

Most of the applications were dated since August 15 and mostly came from Lancaster City. Adams said the applications were collected as part of a “large-scale acquisition effort.”

“In some cases, the applications contained correct personal identifying information, such as the correct address, telephone number, date of birth, driver’s license number and Social Security number – but the people listed on the applications told investigators that they did not request the form,” Adams said. “They did not fill out the form and verify that the signature on the form was not theirs.”

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