PA County Finds 21 Voter Registration Requests To Be Fraudulent Despite State Guidance That Would Have Accepted Them
Cambria County, Pennsylvania, has discovered and thrown out 21 fraudulent voter registration requests, according to county Solicitor Ronald Repak.
The requests were received in the mail at the county election office in July, Repak told The Federalist. The first hint that something was amiss was that the requests all arrived in the county mail on the same day.
When a county receives a voter registration request, election workers compare the information on the request form with state data to verify the requester’s identity. They match the last four digits of the Social Security number with the name on the request, or match the driver’s license number and name. This verification is a requirement of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
Cambria County election workers found each of these voter registration requests had something wrong with it. They found the names and numbers provided did not match the databases, and in some cases the requester had left the spaces for the Social Security number or driver’s license number blank, leaving workers with no numbers to match and no way to verify the requester’s identity, Repak said. In some cases, there was no signature, or the address did not match the name.
The county sent letters to the addresses on the forms informing applicants that the county needed more information before it could register the requester for voting, but the county did not hear back from any of the 21 applicants.
The move to deny the ballot requests may run afoul of the Pennsylvania Department of State’s bizarre directive given to counties that instructs, “Pennsylvania and federal law are clear that voter registrations may not be rejected based solely on a non-match between the applicants’ identifying numbers on their application, and the comparison database numbers.”
“HAVA’s data comparison process ‘was intended as an administrative safeguard “for storing and managing the official list of registered voters” and not as a restriction on voter eligibility,’” the directive reads.
“Counties must ensure their procedures comply with state and federal law, which means that if there is no independent grounds to reject a voter registration application other than a non-match, the application may not be rejected and must be processed like all other applications,” the directive reads.
Before Cambria County accepted the ballots, as the Pennsylvania Department of State directs, county officials took the unusual step of sending them to the county district attorney’s office, where detectives further investigated the voter registration requests.
“The district attorney’s office went out and did due diligence for us to be able to find out, is there truth to these individuals filing? And found that the information could not be corroborated to allow us to move forward with their application,” Repak said.
Detectives went to the 21 different addresses listed on the individual requests and found no one by the name on the request lived there.
By involving the county detectives and running down each registration request, Repak believes Cambria County has complied with the Department of State’s directive.
“They say in their guidance, we have to register them unless there’s independent grounds to reject, and in my opinion, that’s why we asked the district attorney’s office to get involved, because I believe this is the independent ground that allows us to make a rejection.”
In Pennsylvania, voters declare a party when they register to vote. These requests came from a mix of parties.
“I think it was smart of whoever may have done this,” Repak said, indicating that a mix of party requests would curb suspicion. The 21 requests included 13 Democrats, two Republicans, one Libertarian, and five independents.
Cambria County District Attorney Gregory J. Neugebauer told The Federalist in an email that he has referred the matter to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
He also provided the following statement.
“The Cambria County Elections Office reached out to the District Attorney’s Office for assistance verifying information in voter registrations that were flagged by their office. County detectives went to the listed addresses in the applications and generated a report indicating their findings. That was turned over to the Election Board to assist them in performing their duties.”
“Everyone in law enforcement is tasked with supporting and defending the Constitution, and protecting our community. That is an obligation taken very seriously, and when we are able to assist other agencies in furtherance of their duties, we are happy to do so. Election integrity and security is vital to our community, and law enforcement will continue to do our part.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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