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GOP raises concerns about voter fraud in battleground states

Posted on by Bobb
GOP raises concerns about voter fraud in battleground states

republicans“Fears are growing that votes are being manipulated in states on the battlefield this could influence the outcome of a close presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Jarrett Coleman and Republican State Rep. Lloyd Smucker expressed concern over mail-in ballots from overseas voters while Bucks County’s ‘ineffective’ election systems have other GOP officials rumbling.

Here’s a deeper look at early voting issues in swing states from Michigan to Georgia.

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Michigan

The Michigan Department of State’s office announced that problems with some Dominion voting machines may make it difficult for some people to vote for candidates from different parties, also known as split voting.

Michigan residents with disabilities and other voters who use Dominion Voter Assistance, or VAT, terminals to help them vote are first receiving an “error message” when they try to split their ballot between votes for Republican and Democratic candidates.

“If a voter using Dominion VAT votes for a straight party but then splits their ticket, the voter will receive an error message. That voter will have to go back and deselect their straight party and vote for candidates in races individually or vote straight party without splitting their ticket,” said Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. said in a press release.

The department said it was “impossible to fix the VAT program so close to an election,” noting that the issue “will make the process more inconvenient for some voters who use the VAT.”

Answering this question during a recent press conference, Benson declared Election officials only found out about this when “early voting began.” Her comments that the VAT was having the same problems “all over the country” sparked a firestorm, particularly from Conservatives who questioned why the problem “wasn’t caught during the testing period”.

Benson later backtracked on her concerns that voters “across the country” were having problems with the VAT, although she reiterated that Michigan residents were affected.

“Dominion explained that the VAT programming error only affects users in Michigan,” a spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office said.

Meanwhile, former GOP candidate for attorney general in Michigan Matthew DePerno is concerned that the battleground state that former President Donald Trump lost by just over 154,000 votes had 164,000 duplicate ballots recorded in 2020.

“After reviewing the Qualified Voter File (QVF) with votes actually cast as of yesterday, October 29, 2024, the database identifies 114,545 Michigan voters who cast 279,113 ballots from multiple addresses across the state. This results in 164,568 additional ballots as of October 29, 2024,” DePerno said in his report. mail to X.

In a statement responding to DePerno’s concerns, Benson’s office said the “error” had been corrected.

“Each of these voters only had one vote registered in this election. This error in the data export process has been corrected and these erroneous extra rows no longer appear in the report,” the message said.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump called the duplicates a “failure in the system.” mail to X.

“These duplicates have not been counted and WILL NOT BE COUNTED,” said Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, a state where Trump lost by fewer than 82,000 votes four years ago, officials are investigating thousands of “irregular” voter registration applications filed at the last minute in two counties that were linked to the Field Corps and the Media Corps. The company runs voter registration and voter outreach programs and is led by Francisco Heredia, the Democratic vice mayor of Mesa, Arizona.

In York County, Pennsylvania, 24% of the 3,087 pending applications were “undergoing further review,” and 29% had incomplete information, according to the York County District Attorney’s Office.

Officials in Pennsylvania’s Monroe County confirmed that about 30 forms that Heredia was “responsible for filing” included “irregular” mail-in ballot applications.

“In at least one example, the named applicant actually died. To date, several fraudulent voter registration forms have been traced to a specific individual,” the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office said in a Facebook post.

“A company calling itself Field and Media Corps, a subsidiary of Fieldcorps, an Arizona-based organization operating in Lancaster County, was in turn responsible for sending the appropriate forms to county officials,” the statement said.

While the connection to Heredia’s company has not been confirmed, the Lancaster County Elections Office in Pennsylvania has also confirmed that a significant number of voter registration ballots submitted to the county are illegal. Of the 2,500 voter registration applications investigated, 17% were found to be fraudulent. Another 26% are under investigation.

“I will say that a lot of them in this category, 26%, a lot of them are still suspected of fraud, but it’s a very painstaking process to go through,” Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino said during a press update Monday.

In response to these findings, the conservative Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus called on Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt to withdraw a 2018 State Department directive that prohibits “county election officials from rejecting applications or maintaining a pending status when the applicant’s identity cannot be verified.”

Noting that there were “troubling reports of fraudulent voter registration applications,” Republican spokesman David Zimmerman said, “The Department’s directive creates dangerous loopholes that are being exploited to undermine our elections.”

“We call on Secretary Schmidt to immediately rescind this directive, which will allow county election officials to reject unverifiable applications when they are received,” he continued.

Georgia

The Georgia Republican Party, along with the Trump campaign, is leading a lawsuit alleging that seven Democratic-leaning Peach State counties “illegally accepted ballots this weekend AFTER early voting ended on Friday,” according to Fox Business report.

Republicans are concerned that Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, Chatham and Athens-Clarke counties lacked transparency and a commitment to election integrity amid a “coordinated effort” to collect ballots after the early voting deadline.

“Why did these six counties not inform the state board of elections, their county board of elections, the secretary of state or local governments about their plans to significantly extend early voting?” Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon asked in an email. “Who gave the order to Fulton and Chatham County officials to stop election observers from monitoring the process? Why did they do this?

A Georgia judge had previously ruled against The GOP argues that absentee ballots in Fulton County, home to Atlanta and 11% of the state’s voters, should not be accepted after the early voting period ends.

“I find that a voter returning an absentee ballot by hand does not violate these two sections of the code,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer said Nov. 2.

More concerns arose when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) raised concerns in mid-October that Dominion Voting Systems machines were altering early votes. The Georgia lawmaker pointed to one case in her home district of Whitfield County where “a ballot was altered from the selection made by machine.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks to Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in State College, Pennsylvania, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

“After several attempts to change it to reflect their correct choice, they had to void the ballot and use a different machine,” she said in her post. mail to X.

The Whitfield County Board of Elections and Registrar’s office responded to the incident, saying they “quickly resolved” the issue after learning of a situation where “the printed ballot did not reflect the voter’s choice.”

“This issue was quickly resolved while the voter was still there. We assure everyone that we are here to support you in your right to vote, so please always double check your printed ballot before placing it in the scanner,” Whitfield Elections said on Facebook. mail October 18.

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A senior official in the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office blamed the voter error, calling it “human” error.

“There’s a reason we tell people to check their ballots. People make mistakes. They are not called mistakes for nothing. Anyone who claims that machines flip votes is lying or hasn’t done their research. This issue is due to human/user error and always will be. Whitfield Co. handled it and the voters voted,” Gabriel Sterling said in an interview. mail to X.