Details about a continuing investigation revealed by a Republican county commissioner at an election board meeting on Monday undercut claims made by former President Donald J. Trump and others about widespread voter fraud in Lancaster County, Pa.
The commissioner, Ray D’Agostino, said that 17 percent of voter registration forms that had been flagged as suspicious there had been found to be “fraudulent,” and that 26 percent of the suspicious forms were still being reviewed.
The county would not give the total number of registration forms at issue.
But the county was clear that there was no evidence of fraudulent ballots, a fact that stood in stark contrast to a claim made by Mr. Trump at a Sunday rally that “they found 2,600 ballots” — not voter registration forms — “all done by the same hand” in Lancaster County. Mr. Trump’s remarks at the rally, in Lititz, Pa., built on a series of claims that he made last week in speeches and on social media.
The episode, which is still under investigation, is quickly becoming central to claims by Trump and his allies that Democrats are trying to steal 19 electoral votes in a crucial battleground state.
“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster,” Mr. Trump said a few days earlier, at a rally in Allentown, Pa.
There have been no reports of fraudulent ballots in Lancaster County.
A spokesman for the county said that the number of forms at issue was “as many as 2,500” but declined to be more specific.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
