A criminal investigation has been launched after thousands of suspected fraudulent voter registrations were discovered in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.
The Lancaster County Board of Elections announced Friday that staff members identified 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration applications, which had been dropped off at the election office.
Some had false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details.
Two other Pennsylvania counties ‘received similar applications’ and were notified to check into them, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said at a news conference. She declined to name the other counties.
‘It appears to be an organized effort at this point,’ said Adams, an elected Republican. ‘But of course, it’s an ongoing investigation. And we’ll be looking into who exactly participated in it and how far up it goes.’
At the news conference, Lancaster Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican who chairs the election board, said: ‘The fact of the matter is, we’ve contained this. This is not right. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. And we found it, and we’re going to take care of it.’
Most of the applications were dated since August 15, and a majority of them were from Lancaster City.
Adams said: ‘In some cases, applications contained correct personal identification information, such as the correct address, correct phone number, date of birth, driver’s license number and Social Security number.
‘But the individuals listed on the applications informed detectives that they did not request the form. They did not complete the form and verified that the signature on the form was not theirs.’
Pennsylvania and its 19 Electoral College votes are crucial for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris to win the 270 necessary to secure the White House.
The Keystone State was also one of the hubs of unfounded voter fraud allegations in 2020.
It took four days to finish counting the ballots to declare President Joe Biden the winner of that race due to the county requirements in the state.
In 2020, the results there were not known until 11 a.m. local time on the Saturday after Election Day.
Pennsylvania won’t begin counting absentee ballots until Election Day itself, which could delay the results of the election there.
Polls in the crucial state will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time.
And the state is considered a true toss-up for both candidates. Presidential polling averages show Harris and Trump within one point of each other with no clear leader.
The applications in question were dropped off in two batches, according to county election officials. Concerns were raised during staff’s normal process reviewing and entering applications into the system.
Officials reiterated that the systems in place worked, and Lancaster voters can remain confident in the county’s election.
More than 1.2 million people have already voted in Pennsylvania.
The allegations of voter fraud come as now over 33 million Americans have cast their votes nationwide, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
About 17 million votes were cast via mail while 15 million voted in person.
So far, from around the country, 64 million mail-in ballots have been requested.
The battleground states have seen some of the heaviest voting action.
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona have some of the highest early voting rates, which makes sense given the resources both presidential campaigns are pouring in to those areas.
More Democrats have voted early than Republicans, 41 percent to 36 percent. And more women than men, 54 percent to 44 percent.
On Friday in Virginia, a federal judge ruled the state needed to stop removing voters from the rolls and restore some 1,600 of them.
The voters were removed under a state program in an effort to remove alleged noncitizens, but federal law requires states stop systemically removing names of ineligible voters from rolls within 90 days of an election to avoid errors for eligible voters.
More than 1.3 million people have already voted in Virginia.
