Lebanon County officials report no problems with fraudulent voter registration forms after officials in Lancaster County announced they suspect more than 1,500 forms of being fraudulent.

Lancaster County election officials announced Friday, Oct. 25, that the bulk drop-offs of a total of about 2,500 applications appeared to stem from canvassing operations in shopping centers around the county. About 60 percent of those appeared to be fraudulent. The suspect forms were dropped off at the county's board of elections office on two different occasions.

Lebanon County elections director Sean Drasher told the Lebanon Daily News that the county has not had any problems with fraudulent applications.

“We’re always on the lookout,” he said. “Each application is carefully scrutinized when it comes in. You do look for patterns between groups of applications. You have the same people working the same stack.”

If elections officials find a pattern, they will escalate the concern up the chain of command, which includes the county commissioners who serve on the election board and the Lebanon County District Attorney's Office. However, Drasher said Lebanon County has not seen anything of note, let alone on the scale that Lancaster County was reporting.

"What Lancaster did, it shouldn't be a sign of concern," he said. "It should be a sign of assurance the system is working. If somebody tries to get past the system, it gets caught."

At a news conference livestreamed by WGAL, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said county detectives are investigating the incident. Issues identified with the applications included inaccurate addresses, fake and false personal identification information and false names - as well as addresses that did not match Social Security information. She said some people listed in the applications told officials they didn't request a form.

Adams said she was aware of two other counties investigating application irregularities. As of Friday, York County officials said the county has received a large delivery containing thousands of elected-related materials from a third-party organization and the county is carefully processing the materials.

Lebanon County’s Bureau of Voter Registration and Elections reported that as of the end of the day Oct. 22, more than 95,946 residents have registered to vote in the Nov. 5 presidential election. More than 26,720 residents registered as Democrats and 53,548 Republicans. The last day for residents to register to vote was Oct. 21.

The Pennsylvania Department of State on the morning of Oct. 22 recorded more than 9 million people in the commonwealth registered to vote.

Election Info

The Pennsylvania 2024 general election is scheduled for Nov. 5. The last day to request a mail-in or absentee ballot is Oct. 29.

For voters seeking accurate information on their registration status, the Department maintains a lookup tool at vote.pa.gov/status. It also maintains a tracker for mail ballot applications and status, at vote.pa.gov/mailballotstatus.

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on X at @DAMattToth.