Pennsylvania releases voter fraud update as four counties launch investigations

Hundreds of 2,500 voter registration forms flagged as suspicious turned out to be fake, a Lancaster County official in Pennsylvania confirmed Monday.

The county is one of four counties in the key battleground state, along with York, Monroe and Cambria, to investigate potentially fraudulent claims.

This is the status of the investigation in each county.

Lancaster County

Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D'Agostino said in a news conference that of the 2,500 suspicious applications in his county, 57 percent were verified as valid and 17 percent were found to be fraudulent.

He said the remaining 26 percent was still under investigation because it was incomplete or unaudited.

“The other two areas, frankly, will change based on the ongoing investigation,” D'Agostino said.

“And I have to say that many of those who appear to fall into that category, the 26 percent, a whole lot of them, are still suspected of fraud. But it’s obviously a very laborious process.”

At a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Donald Trump seized on the fraud investigation, falsely claiming that Lancaster County discovered “2,600 ballots that all came from the same hand.”

The county's fraud investigations involve voter registration forms, not ballots.

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote on

“We will have free and fair, secure elections again – and the will of the people will be respected.”

Election officials in the affected counties have assured voters that any fraud attempts have been isolated and stopped.

York County

York County said it is investigating 3,087 applications that were received in bulk.

York County Commissioner Julie Wheeler said Thursday that about 47 percent of applications had been verified as legitimate.

24 percent were rejected and are undergoing further review, with most cases being duplicate registration applications.

The remaining 29 percent of applications were found to contain incomplete information and are pending approval pending additional information from applicants.

Monroe County

Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso said Friday that 27 irregular voter applications and absentee ballot request forms had been identified and were being investigated.

He found that 21 of those applications had been sent by an affiliate of an Arizona-based company, 16 of which were found to be fraudulent.

Mancuso said those applications “had forged signatures, often with false or incomplete identifying information.”

The other applications, which had nothing to do with the company, appeared to be stolen mail-in ballots, while the other three were still under investigation, he said.

Cambria County

In early October, officials in Cambria County said 21 voter registration applications were rejected and later confirmed to be fraudulent after an investigation.