Several counties across Pennsylvania and Arizona are investigating batches of improper voter registration forms submitted by an Arizona-based firm in recent weeks.
There is no evidence that the forms led to any fraudulent ballots being cast, but former President Trump has latched onto the revelations, telling his supporters “Pennsylvania is cheating.”
Officials have tied back the disputed applications to Field+Media Corps, a left-leaning firm run by Mesa, Arizona Vice Mayor Francisco Heredia that also does work with nonpartisan voter registration organizations.
Heredia told The Hill he hasn’t been contacted by officials in any of the counties that have flagged his group’s work.
“We are proud of our work to help expand access to voting through voter registration efforts that registered voters from all parties,” Heredia said in an email. “We would hope that if the Recorder had this information, that we would be proactively contacted by his office. If we are contacted, we would work with local officials to help resolve any discrepancies to allow eligible people to vote.”
On Monday, Maricopa County, Ariz., became the latest area to announce issues with the company’s submitted forms. The county, which spans the Phoenix area, is the swing state’s most populous area.
Recorder Stephen Richer (R) said at a Monday press conference that Field+Media Corps played a “significant role” in the 90,000 voter registration applications dropped off on the state deadline.
“It is a group that we have worked with before, and we have admonished them to please, please, please submit better voter registration forms,” Richer said. “To please do more quality control.”
The company took down its website late last week.
“We do our best to have applicants complete the entire form to turn in to the Recorder's office, if we have incomplete forms by law we still turn them in to their office, turning in all forms we collect,” Heredia said. “At the end of the day, we take pride in our work and we believe in the power of voter registration to strengthen our elections."
The scrutiny in Arizona followed confirmation last week from Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry (D) of apparent attempts to submit fraudulent voter registration forms in Berks, Lancaster, Monroe, and York counties.
“These attempts have been thwarted by the safeguards in place in Pennsylvania. We are working every day with our partners to ensure a fair, free, and safe election,” her office said in a statement. “The investigations are ongoing, and offenders who perpetrated acts of fraud will be held accountable under the law.”
Henry’s statement came as several Pennsylvania district attorneys announced that they were investigating mass drop-offs of voter registration forms.
Officials in Lancaster County initially announced they were reviewing roughly 2,500 voter registration forms due to potential fraud. Ray D'Agostino, the vice chair of the county’s board of commissioners, said at a Monday meeting that 57 percent of those have been verified, 17 percent have been identified as fraudulent and the remaining 26 percent are still being investigated.
“A good number of those are still suspected of being fraud, but it’s a very painstaking process, obviously, to go through this,” D’Agostino said.
At a rally last week, Trump misstated the nature of the investigation and falsely claimed fraudulent votes had been cast.
“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster. They’ve cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes. No, we caught them cold,” Trump said.
In Monroe County, District Attorney Michael Manusco (D) said the board of elections referred nearly 30 irregular documents to his office, most of which were submitted by Field+Media Corps. So far, Manusco’s office said 16 applications submitted by the company have been determined to be fraudulent.
“The specific fraudulent character of these applications involve forged signatures, often with incorrect or incomplete identifying information,” Manusco’s office said in a statement.
The York County district attorney’s office confirmed to The Hill the potentially fraudulent forms it is investigating were also submitted by the company.