Only 17% of about 2,500 voter registration applications reviewed are fraudulent, officials in Pa.'s Lancaster County say

PHILADELPHIA — Only 17% of about 2,500 voter registration applications the Lancaster County district attorney was reviewing have been found to be fraudulent so far, county officials said Monday. Another 26% are still being reviewed and 57% were verified as legitimate applications.

Lancaster County announced last month that they were reviewing two batches of voter registration applications that were turned in close to the state's voter registration deadline that had signs of fraud.

The county's announced investigation in many ways proved the system's controls against fraud were working. But it has still fueled misinformation about Pennsylvania's elections. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that the applications were in fact fake ballots.

He revisited that claim during a rally over the weekend claiming the county found "2,600 ballots all done by the same hand."

Ann Yoder, a Democrat on the Lancaster Board of Elections, criticized Trump for the false characterization during Monday's meeting.

"There's no reason to think that the election is not safe and secure," she said.

Board Chairman Josh Parsons, a Republican, jumped to Trump's defense, arguing it is easy to misspeak and call voter registration applications ballots.

Law enforcement has investigated fraudulent voter registration forms in Berks, Lancaster, Monroe and York Counties. At least some of those forms have been tied to Field+Media Corps, an Arizona based company that law enforcement in that state has investigated for bad forms as well, according to Votebeat.

During Monday's Board of Elections meeting, Commissioner Ray D'Agostino, a Republican, laid out data provided by the local prosecutor's office. He noted that the number of fraudulent applications could change as the final 26% of ballots were reviewed.

But the announcement shows that the scale of the bad forms is far smaller than Trump and his allies have presented it — in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

The Mesa, Ariz.-based Field+Media Corps, which conducts voter registration and outreach programs, is run by Francisco Heredia, a local councilman and a longtime voting activist in Arizona.

Irregularities included voters registering the names of dead people and potentially hundreds of duplicate registrations.

In a Facebook post last Tuesday, the office of the Monroe County district attorney wrote that 30 forms Field+Media Corps "was responsible for submitting," which included mail ballot applications, were "fraudulent as they were not authorized by the persons named as applicants."

District Attorney Mike Mancuso wrote in the post, "In at least one example, the named applicant is in fact deceased." He also said that several of the forms he described as fraudulent had been traced to a specific person.

Votebeat reported that York County Chief Clerk Greg Monskie confirmed that the forms the county are investigated were submitted by Field+Media Corps.

In a news release Wednesday, the county said 3,087 applications were under review, according to Votebeat.

The release added that Field+Media Corps submitted the forms on behalf of the Everybody Votes campaign, a national nonprofit voter registration organization.

Everybody Votes, also known as the Voter Registration Project, is a voter mobilization group that targets African American, Latino, Native American, low-income, and other voter groups likely to lean left-of-center, according to the watchdog group Influence Watch. The organization identifies groups connected to public policy issues.

Heredia of Mesa is a registered Democrat, according to Arizona Central, which includes content from the Arizona Republic, and other media outlets in the state.

In a statement, the Everybody Votes Campaign said it had not been contacted by officials in Lancaster, York, or Monroe Counties about an ongoing investigation, and had no information about the forms in question.

"If contacted, we intend to work with our partners and the election officials to quickly resolve any discrepancies and ensure that all eligible registrants have an opportunity to vote next week," the campaign wrote in the statement.