Officials in York County, Pennsylvania, are investigating voter registration and mail ballot applications at the county’s election office, which was highlighted by former President Donald Trump earlier this week.
In a statement, York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler said that her county received a “large delivery containing thousands of election-related materials from a third-party organization,” adding those papers appear to “include completed voter registration forms, as well as mail-in ballot applications.”
“As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal. That process is currently underway,” Wheeler said. “If suspected fraud is identified, we will alert the District Attorney’s Office, which will then conduct an investigation.”
Her statement did not say where the ballots came from and provided no other details about the matter.
A spokesperson for the York County District Attorney’s office told The Epoch Times by email that it has been in contact with the York County Commissioners and York County Board of Elections, although the spokesperson would not specifically address the fraud concerns.
“As we have always done, this office will investigate any matter regarding elections that require a criminal investigation and if needed, would prosecute any cases where the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction,” the spokesperson said.
The office noted that it will not comment on specific allegations or on an investigation, citing its own policy.
His office, he said, is “in touch with these counties from the very beginning to provide guidance to them as they conduct their investigations and will continue to support them as needed,” referring to York and Lancaster.
Several days ago, officials in Lancaster County said they were investigating around 2,500 voter registration forms for possible fraud, adding that the applications had fake names, incorrect addresses, and other problems. Those ballots are being linked to a large-scale canvassing operation in the state, they said.
Two other unnamed counties received similar applications and were notified to check into them, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said at a news conference. She said election workers “noticed that numerous applications” had similarities, but officials did not indicate the volume of suspicious applications or say how many applications had already been fully investigated.
“It appears to be an organized effort at this point,” said Adams, an elected Republican. “But of course, it’s an ongoing investigation. And we’ll be looking into who exactly participated in it and how far up it goes.”
The set of applications has been segregated during the investigation, preventing ballots from being sent to or cast by people until they are deemed valid. Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are being fought over as polls indicate the presidential contest in the state is a close race.
“The fact of the matter is, we’ve contained this,” Lancaster Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican who chairs the election board, said at the news conference. “This is not right. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. And we found it, and we’re going to take care of it.”
“We know that this is a threat to our election system,” Parsons said. “This is essentially an attack on our election system when you’re trying to get registrations in that are clearly fraudulent.”
During the aftermath of the 2020 elections, Trump and Republican officials made claims about election fraud in Pennsylvania and multiple other battleground states, launching multiple lawsuits.
The Epoch Times contacted Wheeler for additional comment on the ballots but received no response by publication time.
