HARRISBURG – Investigations into possible voter registration application fraud in three Pennsylvania counties have become fodder for online misinformation, including from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Authorities in Lancaster, Monroe and York counties have released limited details and local prosecutors are investigating whether any crimes may have occurred.

What do we know?

Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams, an elected Republican, said poll workers raised concerns about two sets of voter registration applications because of what she described as numerous similarities. They are examining a total of about 2,500 forms.

Lancaster officials said they alerted two other counties to check similar registration requests. In Monroe County, Board of Elections staff identified about 30 irregular forms and forwarded them to the district attorney’s office.

York County Chief Clerk Greg Monskie confirmed this week that his county was reviewing the suspicious forms. County Commissioner Julie Wheeler issued a statement saying voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications were among a “large delivery containing thousands of election-related materials” that the county elections office received. from an external organization. He said if a review turns up suspicion of fraud, the district attorney will investigate.

The York district attorney’s office said it was in contact with the board of commissioners and elections office, but did not indicate whether a criminal investigation had been launched.

Who submitted the forms in question?

Lancaster County officials have not revealed who they suspect is responsible. In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Wheeler attributed the documents York County received to Field+Media Corps, which she said was “acting on behalf of” the Everybody Votes campaign. Everybody Votes is a national, nonpartisan organization that promotes voter registration.

In an email Tuesday, Field+Media Corps CEO Francisco Heredia said his Mesa, Arizona-based organization had not been contacted by election officials in Pennsylvania counties and had no additional information about the forms. supposedly problematic.

If Field+Media Corps is contacted, he said, it “will work with local officials to help resolve any discrepancies and allow eligible people to vote.” He said there were six or seven other organizations also working in the area.

In an email response, a spokesperson for the Everyone Votes Campaign said this week that it had not been contacted by Lancaster, York or Monroe county officials about any ongoing investigation and had no additional information about the forms.

What has Trump said about the investigations?

The presidential campaigns of Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have visited Pennsylvania more than any other state because it has the most voters of any battleground.

Trump posted about the issue earlier this week on his Truth Social platform, saying Lancaster County was “caught with 2,600 fake ballots and forms, all written by the same person.” There’s no reason to think the ballots are part of what Lancaster is investigating.

They have said that 2,500 voter registration forms were segregated for investigation, but have not said how many of them are problematic. Some of those forms have been deemed legitimate and are being processed as usual, Lancaster officials said. Voter registration forms are not ballots.

During a campaign event in Allentown on Tuesday, the former president said they “already started cheating in Lancaster. They’ve cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes. No, we caught them cold. 2,600 votes. Think about this: Think about this. And every vote was written by the same person.”

To be clear, Lancaster is investigating voter registration applications, not “votes.” Lancaster officials said some forms contained false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details, but they did not say they were all written by the same person.

Adams, the Lancaster County prosecutor, said falsifying a voter registration application is a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine. He said state election law carries different penalties, depending on the provision, but noted that violating one section could result in the loss of voting privileges for 10 years.

Is voter registration fraud a real problem?

Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said there have been cases in the past where a combination of financial incentives for people involved in voter registration efforts and poor oversight of those efforts have resulted in problems.

Fake registration forms add to the workload and cause frustration for county election workers, he said, but he stressed that does not translate into an increased risk of someone voting improperly.

Poll workers in Pennsylvania who receive a new voter registration form confirm the voter’s identity and address. They also send mail to the address listed on the form, he said. New voters and those voting in a new precinct must present identification and their signature is checked against a poll book.

“There are many checks and balances in the process to ensure that elections are secure and integrity is protected,” Boockvar said.

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top state elections official, highlighted the high volume of misinformation circulating ahead of Election Day on Tuesday and urged people to get their information from “reliable sources.”

“Spreading videos and other information that lacks context, sharing social posts filled with half-truths or even outright lies is detrimental to our representative democracy,” he said during a press conference Wednesday.

Schmidt highlighted the various controls that have been put in place to ensure that only eligible voters cast their ballots and that only one vote per voter is counted.