Pennsylvania county says only a fraction of flagged voter registrations were forged

The Lancaster County Board of Elections on Monday said 17% of 2,500 voter registration applications flagged as potentially fraudulent were, in fact, forged. The elections board verified a majority of the questionable applications—about 57%—as authentic, while it was still investigating the remaining 26%. A significant number of the applications that have yet to be examined could be fraudulent, according to County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino. The Board of Elections previously said it would process any applications verified as authentic.

What prompted the investigation in the first place? In an Oct. 25 news conference, election officials said they had identified an organized effort to register voters illegally and pulled 2,500 questionable registration applications for investigation. The elections board said two batches of applications were delivered to the county at the last minute, and many showed signs of potential fraud, including duplicate handwriting matching other registration forms and inconsistent signatures, as well as inaccurate addresses and driver’s license numbers. Election officials said both batches were filed on or after Aug. 15 and first came to light when election office staff noticed the same handwriting across several documents.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s initial report about the investigation.