FILE - Table top voting booths are stored at the Allegheny County Election Division warehouse on the Northside of Pittsburgh, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. New data from automatic voter registration at Pennsylvania driver’s license centers shows that sign-ups have grown but remain almost evenly divided between the political parties in the presidential battleground state. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
As the democracy reporter for WITF, I will cover any kind of story that has to do with how we govern ourselves. That will include doing a lot of election coverage about how to access the ballot, how public officials administer elections, the technology used to run and secure elections, and the laws that govern it all.
My work will also include accountability coverage for elected officials that use their positions to then undermine democratic institutions, like the legislators that voted against the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 2021. If that weren’t enough, I foresee covering some local government decisions, fights over public records and transparency, and some candidate coverage in 2024. Many stories can have a “democracy frame” meant to help us all understand how our governments work and how we can shape them.
I’m most looking forward to the community reporting about which WITF is passionate. I’ll be talking to a lot of folks about what they want out of their governments, local to national, and how they want to make their visions reality. I’m excited to meet you and talk, with or without a microphone on hand.
I also like to turn my work phone off. When I do that, I’m looking for rocks to climb, trails to run on (slower and slower, somehow), and new places to visit. I’ve lived in the (extended) South for most of my life, so y’all will hear me say things funny and sometimes my hearing is funny, too, so we’ll figure out this radio thing together.
FILE - Table top voting booths are stored at the Allegheny County Election Division warehouse on the Northside of Pittsburgh, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. New data from automatic voter registration at Pennsylvania driver’s license centers shows that sign-ups have grown but remain almost evenly divided between the political parties in the presidential battleground state. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
A delivery of voter registration and mail ballot applications to York County’s elections office is under scrutiny after getting attention from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and local GOP officials.
While Trump and some other Republicans are pointing to York County’s terse statement as evidence of voter fraud, county officials have not announced a criminal investigation, leaving open the likelihood that elections staff are simply culling sloppy and incomplete registrations from properly completed ones.
The county elections office said it received the applications near the Oct. 21 registration deadline and is working through the “thousands of election-related materials from a third-party organization.”
“Those materials appear to include completed voter registration forms, as well as mail-in ballot applications,” the county said Friday. “As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal.”
The county declined to answer questions for this story. York County’s announcement came after an announcement in neighboring Lancaster County, where the district attorney and all three commissioners announced an investigation into a large batch of voter registration applications received near the cutoff date.
The receipt of large batches of voter registration forms at the deadline is normal in presidential years, according to Jerry Feaser, who led the Dauphin County elections office from 2013 – 2023.
“That’s quite frankly par for the course,” Feaser said. “We know that they’re out there trying to get as many people registered to vote before the deadline.”
He added that this problem often comes from third-party, nationally organized groups, rather than local voter registration groups that know to turn in forms regularly rather than in large numbers at the last minute. Feaser said these groups are not serving voters well when they collect registration forms in August but wait until October to submit them.
Trump weighs in
The national spotlight on York County’s elections administration comes just a week before the presidential election, in a year where Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that Democrats plan to cheat.
Friday night, Trump posted a statement to social media that misrepresented the number of registration forms under review.
The next morning, the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus issued a press release stating York County “had uncovered thousands of suspected fraudulent registrations and mail ballot applications.”
State Rep. Dawn Keefer, a Republican who represents parts of York County and is chairwoman of the Freedom Caucus, did not respond for comment.
The caucus asked the Department of State to change some of its guidance on how to confirm identity when people request to register to vote.
On Tuesday, Trump amplified misleading claims about Lancaster and York twice more. Once in a press conference at Mar-a-Lago where he referred to “bad spots” in Pennsylvania, and then by reposting his message onto the social media site X, where he has 92 million followers.
A ‘review’
Though Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt initially used the word “investigation” about the situation in York County, Department of State communications staff said the more accurate word would be “review.” They said the department is not aware of any criminal investigation, only that the county is looking over the submitted forms. They referred all further questions to York County.
One Harrisburg TV station, Fox 43, reported that county officials said “the delivery (of registration forms) was made by Field+Media Corps, which was acting on behalf of the Everybody Votes Campaign.” York did not confirm that information to LNP/WITF.
According to its website, the Everybody Votes Campaign runs “accessible, successful, and high-quality voter registration programs” in communities of color.
“We have not been contacted by officials in Lancaster, York, or Monroe counties about any ongoing investigations and have no additional information on the forms in question,” according to a statement from Everybody Votes Campaign. “Our partners work diligently to ensure all forms collected comply with all rules and regulations.”
The York County District Attorney’s office said it is working closely with the county elections office and said it would investigate should there be a need, but did not provide further detail.
Both the PA Freedom Caucus and Trump tied the York County situation to the investigation into voter registration forms in Lancaster County.
There, county commissioners and the district attorney announced they were reviewing a batch of 2,500 registration forms and that an unspecified number of them were being investigated for possible fraud. Since the Friday announcement, no updates have been provided on the investigation.
Jeff Greenburg, who led elections in Mercer County from 2007 to 2020 and is now the senior adviser for election administration at the good government nonprofit Committee of Seventy, said the submission of flawed registration forms isn’t unusual in a federal election year. But the scope of the fraud alleged by Trump and some Republicans is out of scale of what has been seen by election officials in the past.
A hundred registration applications with problems “might be realistic,” Greenburg said. “If it’s 2,500, that’s unbelievable,” he said.
Sometimes, your mornings are just too busy to catch the news beyond a headline or two. Don’t worry. The Morning Agenda has got your back. Each weekday morning, host Tim Lambert will keep you informed, amused, enlightened and up-to-date on what’s happening in central Pennsylvania and the rest of this great commonwealth.