Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has announced charges against seven people in connection with a fraudulent voter registration scheme. The case serves as another example of vulnerabilities in the U.S. election systems and highlights why our system should not allow third parties to handle voter registration requests.
According to police criminal complaints, workers who were hired to collect voter registration requests were given a quota to meet. Some workers told investigators they would be fired if they did not turn in enough requests, so they handed in bogus registrations, according to the complaints.
As the ground game for the 2024 presidential election picked up steam in the final weeks last year, election workers focused on swing states like Pennsylvania, with its 19 vital electoral votes. It was said the presidency could not be won without Pennsylvania, and the presidential winner did take Pennsylvania, with Donald Trump declaring victory soon after winning the state.
For months before Election Day, the state was teaming with organized canvassers urging low-propensity voters to register to vote. As counties received loads of daily registration forms and worked to verify the requester’s identity, several counties noticed a troubling pattern.
In Lancaster County, officials received around 2,500 voter registration requests in about a week that came in two large batches. County election workers noticed some had the same handwriting, many shared the same date, and some had other anomalies, as The Federalist reported last year.
“The county investigated and found 60 percent were confirmed as ‘fraudulent,’ according to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams.” She indicated the fraudulent applications were part of a larger operation that began in June 2024.
Similar reports came out of neighboring Berks and York counties. Officials said the bogus registration requests were related to workers canvassing “at shopping centers, parking lots of grocery stores and businesses, sidewalks, and parks.”
Sunday took the case from the county district attorneys, and last week the Office of Attorney General charged Guillermo Sainz, 33, of Sierra Vista, Arizona, with three counts of Solicitation of Registration, that is, allegedly giving workers quotas to meet. Sainz “served as director of a company’s registration drive efforts in Pennsylvania,” Sunday’s statement reads. Each count carries a fine of at least $500 or “imprisonment for not less than one month” or both.
The criminal complaint names the company as Field and Media Corps. Sainz’s LinkedIn account showing his work history there has been removed.
Hellbound and Down 