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Investigations by five Pennsylvania counties into the submission of suspicious voter registration forms haven’t resulted in any charges yet, and three of the counties aren’t releasing details about the progress of their inquiries.
Votebeat and Spotlight PA followed up with the counties — Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Monroe, and York — that announced investigations before Election Day into what they described then as hundreds of potentially fraudulent voter registration forms dropped off near the Oct. 21 deadline.
There is no evidence in any of the counties that the forms under scrutiny resulted in any ineligible voters casting a ballot. Officials emphasized that the suspicious applications were not processed.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and others claimed falsely before the election that the suspicious forms were proof of fraudulent ballots being injected into the contest. But they haven't made such claims since he carried Pennsylvania and won the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said this week that her detectives determined that 383 forms contained indicators of fraud, and 453 forms had information that could not be verified or contained suspected fraudulent information. County officials had initially said “as many as 2,500” voter registration forms were being reviewed for potential fraud, but Adams said the elections office provided her office with only 1,203 forms.
A spokesperson for the county did not respond to a question about what happened with the other 1,300 forms.
At a news conference in late October, Adams said indicators of fraud in Lancaster included numerous applications with the same handwriting. Some of the applications were for voters who were previously registered, and the signatures on file did not match the ones on the applications.
Adams declined to identify who submitted the potentially fraudulent forms.
Spokespersons for both Lehigh and York Counties’ district attorneys said the investigations were ongoing and did not provide more information.
In previous statements, Monroe and York Counties linked the forms they deemed suspicious to Arizona-based Field+Media Corps, a company that conducts voter registration and outreach programs.
Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso did not return calls this week seeking comment. In a Nov. 1 Facebook post, he wrote that of the 21 applications received from the Field Corps — the parent company of Field+Media Corps — investigators determined 16 were fraudulent, based on forged signatures or incorrect and incomplete personal information. An Oct. 30 statement from York County said roughly 24% of 3,087 forms had been referred to the district attorney for “further review.”
Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said on Nov. 1 that his office was investigating more than 1,500 forms, though it is not clear if those are linked to Field+Media Corps or how many are actually fraudulent. Berks County District Attorney John Adams said Friday that the investigation into 1,300 forms referred to his office in late October was still underway and that it was too soon to say what the result would be.
Francisco Heredia, a Mesa, Arizona, city council member and a longtime voting activist who runs Field+Media Corps, declined to comment.
Jen Fifield of Votebeat Arizona contributed to this report.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
