Lancaster election officials believe fraudulent applications were mixed into two batches of registration forms, together totaling around 2,500 applications.
Election officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, announced they have flagged numerous potentially fraudulent voter registration forms.
The suspected fraudulent forms were delivered in two batches, together totaling about 2,500 voter registration applications.
Speaking at an Oct. 25 press conference, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said county officials are continuing to review the voter registration forms. Adams said some of the forms in the two delivered batches appeared legitimate, but about 60 percent of the forms investigators have reviewed thus far included indicators of fraud.
The district attorney said the county was on track to finish reviewing the 2,500 voter registrations by the end of the day on Oct. 25. The Epoch Times reached out to the Lancaster Board of Elections for a more precise final total of suspected fraudulent ballots, but the county did not respond by publication time on Oct. 26.
Speaking at the press conference, Adams said county election staff began to notice numerous applications appeared to have the same handwriting or were filled out on the same day with unknown signatures. She said some forms came in for already-registered voters, but the signatures on the application forms didn’t match signatures on file for those voters.
Adams said detectives in Lancaster County conducted further reviews and “immediately found applications that were indeed fraudulent.”
In some cases, investigators also found applications with inaccurate addresses, false personal identification information and false names, and several applications with inaccurate security information. Adams said detectives also found instances in which forms contained accurate voter information, but the listed applicants told detectives they had not requested the voter application forms.
“At this point, we have confirmed violation of our crimes code as well as our elections code,” Adams said.
Adams said there’s evidence of at least one instance of forgery of an application, which she said is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $115,000 fine. She said other instances of fraud may be first-degree misdemeanor offenses, with violators potentially losing the right to vote for 10 years.
Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino said the alleged fraudulent voter registration forms don’t appear to favor only one party.
“They’re—in some cases, they’re registering in different parties,” he said.
Adams said she’s aware of at least two other counties that are investigating similarly suspicious voter application forms. She declined to identify the two counties.
“I’m not going to name them. That would be up to them to make a statement if they so choose. Our detectives have been in contact with both of the detectives in those two counties at this point,” she said.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Pennsylvania Department of State for additional comments about the reports of fraudulent voter registration forms in multiple counties. The department did not respond by publication time.
The voter fraud concerns arise as Pennsylvania is expected to potentially decide the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. This week, the Cook Political Report—which assesses how states appear to lean each election cycle—moved the Pennsylvania statewide rating from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up.”
Former President Donald Trump, who is seeking to retake the White House, won Pennsylvania in the 2016 election cycle. President Joe Biden took the state in 2020.
As of Oct. 23, the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average shows Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by less than a full percentage point in Pennsylvania’s presidential contest.
Meanwhile, incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is leading his Republican challenger, David McCormick, by about 1.6 percent in RCP’s latest average of polls for Pennsylvania’s 2024 senate race.