Officials in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Friday said an investigation has been started after election workers found about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter applications.
“Board of Elections staff members identified and contained incidents of voter registration fraud,” the Lancaster County Elections Board said in a news release. “Elections staff and the district attorney’s office are currently assessing the nature and the volume of fraud.”
During a Friday press conference, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said the suspected fraudulent voter registrations appear to be linked to paid canvassing, though she did not provide information on who is believed to have funded the canvassers.
“It appears to be an organized effort,” Adams said, according to LancasterOnline.
Officials said a large number of suspicious voter registration applications were received at the county elections office close to the deadline on Monday. A probe by Adams’ office found incorrect addresses and false identification information, LancasterOnline reported.
Workers prepare mail-in ballots for counting on November 4, 2020, at the convention center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Officials in Lancaster County on Friday announced thousands of suspected fraudulent voter applications had been discovered.
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
Where Did the Applications Come From?
“The majority of the applications were from residents in the city of Lancaster,” Adams said at the conference, according to PoliticsPA.com. “However, applications were also received from residents in Columbia, Elizabethtown, Mount Joy, Stevens, Strasburg, as well as other locations across Lancaster County.”
Adams noted that some of the applications submitted by the groups were found to be legitimate.
What Is Lancaster County’s Voter Registration?
The Pennsylvania county saw record registration hit a record last month ahead of November’s election.
In late September, the county reached 357,000 registered voters, surpassing the previous record set in 2020 of 354,000, according to local NBC-affiliated station WGAL. Of the 357,000 registered voters, 181,902 were Republican, compared to 113, 336 Democrats.
“It’s kind of hard not to know that there’s an election coming up. There’s a lot of energy, a lot of attention being paid to Pennsylvania, and I think that’s filtering down to individuals who want to be a part of that process,” Lancaster County Elections Board Chair Ray D’Agostino told WGAL in September.
How Important Is Pennsylvania in the Election?
Pennsylvania is considered a crucial swing state in the November 5 presidential election, and both Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, have made multiple appearances there in recent weeks in hopes of gaining the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.
An Emerson College Polling/RCPA Pennsylvania survey released on Thursday, which was conducted between October 21-22 among 860 likely voters in the swing state, showed Trump with 49 percent of voter support in Pennsylvania versus Harris’ 48 percent, while 3 percent remained undecided. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
