Thousands of ‘potentially fraudulent voter registration applications’ uncovered, stopped in Pennsylvania

To their credit, election officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania have uncovered and stopped a fraudulent voter registration scheme.

The scheme involved 2,500 voter registration applications that were found to contain duplicate handwriting, fake names, inaccurate addresses, or signatures that didn’t match the ones already on file.

Word of the scheme came during a press conference Friday by Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams:

“On Tuesday afternoon, I was contacted by Krista Miller, who is our chief clerk of elections, regarding potentially fraudulent voter registration applications that had recently been received by her office,” she said at the conference. “At that time, she informed me that the elections office received approximately 2,500 applications at or near the deadline for registering to vote.”

“While preparing to process these applications, staff noticed that numerous applications appeared to have the same handwriting, were filled out on the same day with unknown signatures, and some were previously registered voters and the signatures on file didn’t match the signatures on the application,” she added.

According to Adams, when Lancaster County detectives examined the applications, they quickly discovered that an estimated 60 percent of them were indeed fraudulent.

“Indicators of fraud included inaccuracies with the addresses listed on the application, false personal identification information, as well as false names,” she said. “A number of the applications also contain names that did not match the provided Social Security information.”

“In some cases, applications contained correct personal identification information such as the correct address, correct phone number, data of birth, driver’s license number, and Social Security number,” she added.

The only thing that stopped these otherwise seemingly perfectly fine applications from being processed were the individuals listed on the application, who confirmed to detectives that they never requested the form, let alone filled it out and signed it.

Here’s where things get ultra-serious. According to Adams, the evidence strongly suggests these 2,500 applications were part of a much larger, potentially state-wide operation.

“At this point, it is believed that the fraudulent voter registrations are connected to a large-scale canvassing operation for voter registrations that date back to June,” she revealed. “Those canvassing for voter registrations were employed and paid to obtain voter registration applications.”

While most of the 2,500 applications originated from Lancaster, there were also some applications from Columbia, Elizabethtown, Mountjoy, Akron, Ephrata, Stevens, Strasburg, and others.

The actual canvassing for voters occurred at “shopping centers, parking lots of grocery stores and businesses, sidewalks and parks.”

The Biden-Harris State Department is aware of the scheme and has praised Lancaster officials for discovering it.

“The Department applauds the efforts of the election staff for their diligent work in spotting this potential fraud and bringing it to the attention of law enforcement,” they said in a statement reported by Lancaster Online.

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters at an unrelated event, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said he’s aware of the scheme but stressed that it’s important officials determine which applications are legitimate so that no actual voters are disenfranchised.

“You’ve got to make sure that any eligible voter who applied isn’t disenfranchised from the process,” he said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. “But at the same time, they have a responsibility in the election code to make sure that anything submitted to them that is fraudulent in nature doesn’t impact the election at all.”

“We have an obligation under the election code,” Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino added. “Not only that, but a moral obligation to investigate any matters of potential fraud.”

This scheme mirrors a similar one that Michigan officials discovered in 2020:

However, that scheme reportedly led to zero known arrests or charges …

Vivek Saxena

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