Election workers process ballots at the Arapahoe County Elections Facility in Littleton, Colorado. (Carl Payne, for Colorado Newsline)
By Jen Fifield, Votebeat
Two Pennsylvania counties have identified an Arizona-based company as the source of thousands of last-minute voter registration applications that they are investigating.
The company, Field+Media Corps, which conducts voter registration and outreach programs, is run by Francisco Heredia, a Mesa councilman and a longtime voting activist in Arizona.
In Monroe County, around 30 forms the company was “responsible for submitting,” which also included mail ballot applications, were “irregular” and included what the District Attorney’s Office described in a Facebook post as several that were “fraudulent as they were not authorized by the persons named as applicants.”
“In at least one example, the named applicant is in fact deceased,” District Attorney Mike Mancuso wrote in the post, saying several of the forms he described as fraudulent had been traced to a specific person.
York County Chief Clerk Greg Monskie confirmed to Votebeat Wednesday that Field+Media Corps submitted the forms that the county is investigating. Monskie said the company submitted the forms on behalf of the Everybody Votes campaign, a national nonprofit voter registration organization.
Everybody Votes said in a statement that the company has not been contacted by officials in Lancaster, York, or Monroe counties about ongoing investigations, but would help resolve any issues with the forms if contacted.
”Our partners work diligently to ensure all forms collected comply with all rules and regulations,” the statement said.
In a press release Wednesday, the county said that of the 3,087 applications under review, it had found that roughly 47% were legitimate, 29% had incomplete information, and 24% were “undergoing further review” by the York County district attorney.
Heredia told Votebeat that the company has not heard from any county officials in Pennsylvania, or received any information about problems with the forms it submitted there, but he said that the company would fully cooperate with any investigation in Pennsylvania.
Company’s voter registration efforts were flagged in Arizona
Heredia has been a councilman in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb of about a half million people, since 2017. He was reelected in July. Before joining the council, he was for years a leader of Mi Familia Vota, a prominent Latino voter advocacy group, according to his LinkedIn profile. For a short period in 2017, he was the community relations manager for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.
Field+Media Corps operates voter registration drives for clients in Arizona, too. Last year, both Navajo and Mohave counties flagged voter registration forms from the company and sent them to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for investigation, office spokesperson Richie Taylor confirmed to Votebeat Thursday.
Taylor said that Maricopa County prosecutors took the lead on investigating, because the forms were initially submitted there before being sent on to Navajo and Mohave. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office confirmed the office opened a related investigation, but was unable to immediately provide more detail.
Asked about the Pennsylvania and Arizona investigations, Heredia said the company trains workers to fill out forms accurately. When asked about the characterization of some submitted forms as fraudulent, Heredia said Field+Media Corps has a zero tolerance policy for workers who submit fraudulent forms.
He said the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office contacted his company last year in connection with an investigation into two canvassers the company employed. Field+Media Corps fired those two workers, Heredia said.
Clients or past clients of Field+Media Corps in Arizona include several prominent Arizona voter advocacy groups, including LUCHA, Chispa AZ, and CPLC Action Fund, according to the company’s website.
This election cycle, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office has flagged FieldCorps, the parent company of Field+Media Corps, for submitting a high percentage of incomplete or inaccurate forms, office spokesperson Sierra Ciaramella confirmed Wednesday.
Heredia said that he is in regular contact with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, and has been for years, since he began doing this work in Arizona. He said that he is open to ways that the company can turn in more accurate forms and that his company has a good working relationship with the county.
Arizona has long dealt with problems with incomplete, inaccurate, and potentially fraudulent voter registration forms. A Votebeat analysis earlier this year found that the problem leaves potentially eligible voters off the voter rolls just before the state’s voter registration deadlines.
When county officials receive an incomplete or inaccurate form, county workers reach out to voters to complete the forms. If they cannot do so, the registration is not processed.
False claims arise as Pennsylvania continues investigating
Heredia noted that his company reviews forms collected by workers in Pennsylvania before submitting them to check for things like similar signatures across multiple forms. But even if they spot problems, under state law, they must turn them in.
Heredia confirmed his company did voter registration work on behalf of Everybody Votes. He said his company worked in Pennsylvania for more than five months leading up to the registration deadline, submitting forms just about every other week. Election officials did not tell the company of any problems with their forms during that time period, he said.
His company no longer has workers in the state now that the voter registration deadline has passed, he said.
Pennsylvania is a hotly contested swing state, widely viewed as key to the presidential race, and its elections are under heavy national scrutiny.
Former President Donald Trump this week alluded to the counties’ announcements in social media posts, falsely claiming fake ballots had been found in Pennsylvania. Election experts pushed back, noting that the applications were flagged by election officials as potentially problematic, a sign the system is working, and that no ballots were involved.
In a third Pennsylvania county conducting an investigation, Lancaster County, officials have declined to identify the group or person who submitted the 2,500 forms they are investigating. District Attorney Heather Adams, a Republican, announced at a press conference last week that roughly 60% of the applications her detectives have reviewed so far were allegedly fraudulent, while others were legitimate. She has since described “hundreds” of the applications as fraudulent, but has not given an exact number or announced any criminal charges related to the investigation.
Adams declined to comment about whether Field+Media Corps had submitted the applications.
Monroe County’s Mancuso wrote on Facebook that his office is working with investigators from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and others as they continue to investigate.
The Pennsylvania Department of State emphasized in a statement Wednesday night that York and Lancaster counties had identified the potential irregularities only in voter registration applications, which they did not process — not in ballot applications or returned ballots.
“The counties’ process to flag and investigate these potentially fraudulent voter registration applications show the safeguards built into our election system are working,” Department of State spokesperson Geoff Morrow said.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.