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Approximately 2,500 voter registrations dropped off at the Lancaster County Board of Elections could be fraudulent, the county commissions and County District Attorney Heather Adams announced at a joint press conference on Friday, Oct. 25.
These applications were collected by paid canvassers during the summer at shopping centers, parking lots of grocery stores, other businesses, sidewalks, and parks in Lancaster County.
The registration applications are currently undergoing an "extensive multi-step review process including checks for duplicate handwriting matching other voter registration forms, inconsistent signatures with what is on file in the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors [...] inaccurate or unverifiable addresses and inaccurate driver’s license or Social Security numbers", as stated in a joint release by county officials.
The Board of Elections staff took these applications to the District Attorney’s Office for further investigation. Lancaster County Detectives "found applications that were indeed fraudulent," as written in the release. "In some cases, applications contained correct personal identification information such as the right address, phone, DOB, driver’s license and social security number, but the individual listed on the application informed Detectives that they did not request the form, did not complete the form and verified that the signature on the form was not theirs."
The majority of the voter registration forms were for residents in the City of Lancaster. However, applications were also received for residents in these areas:
- Columbia
- Elizabethtown
- Mount Joy
- Akron
- Ephrata
- Stevens
- Strasburg
- Other locations across Lancaster County
"At this point, we have confirmed violation of our crimes code as well as our elections code. We have all available detectives working on this. We are all hands on deck so that we can properly assess the validity of these applications in a timely manner. If needed, we will request additional assistance from our local police departments," Adams said.
Two other counties, York and Luzerne, are conducting similar investigations.
Daily Voice received the following statement from York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler regarding bulk drop-offs of election-related materials:
“We are committed to ensuring the integrity, safety and security of our elections. The York County Office of Elections and Voter Registration has received a large delivery containing thousands of election-related materials from a third-party organization. Those materials appear to include completed voter registration forms, as well as mail-in ballot applications. As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal. That process is currently underway. If suspected fraud is identified, we will alert the District Attorney’s Office, which will then conduct an investigation. We will have no further comment until our internal review has been completed.”
You can check your voting status here. If you think your personal information was used without your consent or you were asked to register to vote under suspicious circumstances, investigators want to hear from you. You can call the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office at (717) 299-8100 and ask to speak to the on-call detective.
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