Election Integrity: Lancaster County, PA Busts Fraudulent Voter Registration Efforts

With the election mere days away, election integrity is rightly of paramount concern for many. The good news is election authorities appear to be keeping a watchful eye for shenanigans and heading them off at the pass — something former President Donald Trump has voiced his own concerns about, even just today (Friday).

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Pennsylvania is thought by many to be the key to the race. One of the seven swing states, the Keystone State's 19 electoral votes are critical, and the presidential candidates are scrapping and clawing for them. Not only is voter turnout key, but so is voter registration. And so we've witnessed an amazing amount of effort being put into the registration ground game this election cycle — with some positive results for the GOP. In 2020, there were 4,228,888 registered Democrats and 3,543,070 registered Republicans for the November election. As of October 21, 2024 (the last day for registering in Pennsylvania), there were 3,971,607 registered Democrats and 3,673,783 registered Republicans. Thus, Democrats have lost ground while Republicans have gained it.

The net effect of those gains is that they are chipping away at the blue wall/firewall Dems need in Pennsylvania to win it — a fact acknowledged even by some decidedly not in the Republican camp as noted by Scott Presler earlier on Friday.

Inject this into my veins.

Republicans, keep going.

Don’t you DARE stop for a second.

Treat this election w/ the urgency it requires. pic.twitter.com/sIyjnahrhp
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) October 25, 2024

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Late Friday morning, news broke that election officials in Lancaster County had discovered potential voter registration fraud implicating as many as 2,500 registrations.

BREAKING: Lancaster County team finds and stops suspected voter registration fraud operation.

Press conference at 11:30 AM.

Livestream can be found here: https://t.co/CqUKWXPgdD pic.twitter.com/nuKizpNxqb
— Commissioner Josh Parsons (@CommissionerJP) October 25, 2024

Officials held a press conference on the matter shortly thereafter to share their findings thus far.

BREAKING: Lancaster County DA announces investigation; major voter registration fraud uncovered in Penn. pic.twitter.com/5kcxqMRDtK
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 25, 2024

Here's more on the information disclosed by the officials:

The Lancaster County commissioners and District Attorney Heather Adams said instances of voter registration fraud were discovered in batches of last-minute submissions linked to canvassing largely focused on the city since June.
A large number of suspicious voter registration applications were dropped off at the county elections office near Monday's deadline, county officials said. An investigation by the district attorney's office found incorrect addresses, false identification information, false names and names that did not match Social Security information.
The officials said one or two organizations that conducted registration drives in the county in recent months were responsible for the applications. They did not name the organizations.
...
Adams said her investigators found problems with 60% of the registrations they have so far reviewed. She did not say how many of the 2,500 registrations had been investigated. She said applications came from people living in the city, as well as Columbia, Elizabethtown, Akron, Ephrata, Stevens and Strasburg.
She also said the same organization or organizations responsible for submitting the registrations were believed to be active in two other counties. She did not name those counties but said her investigators had reached out to them.

As noted during the conference, a portion of the registrations were deemed to be valid and would be treated as such.

Pennsylvania has seen some recent legal victories regarding election integrity, which hopefully will go hand-in-hand with the efforts of local election officials to mitigate against fraudulent registration and/or voting efforts.

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While officials have not yet identified the organization(s) thought to be involved, some on the left were quick to try and point fingers at Presler's organization, Early Vote Action. Presler has since issued a statement largely smacking that notion down.

Statement On Lancaster:

It’s been brought to my attention that Lancaster County has uncovered a voter registration fraud operation.

According to the report, the majority of those 2,500 voter registration applications were turned in at or near the deadline & are dated August…
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) October 25, 2024

The full statement reads:

Statement On Lancaster:
It’s been brought to my attention that Lancaster County has uncovered a voter registration fraud operation.
According to the report, the majority of those 2,500 voter registration applications were turned in at or near the deadline & are dated August 15th.
I can unequivocally state that this has nothing to do with @EarlyVoteAction.
Our staff turn in voter registration forms as we register voters.
The most forms we’ve ever turned in at one time was 400 in Luzerne County — right before we flipped it from [blue to red].
At a recent Luzerne County BOE meeting, the manager revealed that an individual turned in a large quantity of forms on the deadline that were dated back to June. This had no connection to @EarlyVoteAction, either. (This batch should also be reviewed.)
I’m proud that our organization has registered tens of thousands of new Pennsylvania voters this cycle.
The reason why democrats are attacking us is because we’re effective. They’re also attacking us because their voter registration advantage is the lowest it’s been in 50 years & their mail-in ballot “firewall” is severely lagging.
Furthermore, we’ve made a concerted effort to register the Amish to vote in Lancaster — a group that democrat Governor Shapiro & the Dept. of Agriculture is waging a war against.
We look forward to hearing the results of this investigation & who is responsible. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a democrat organization.
In the meantime, vote, vote early, vote by mail, & let’s deliver Pennsylvania for Donald Trump.
Let’s go.