HARRISBURG — Investigations into possible fraud on voter registration applications in three Pennsylvania counties have become fodder for online misinformation, including from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Authorities in Lancaster, Monroe and York counties have released limited details and local prosecutors are investigating whether any crimes occurred.

What do we know?

Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams, an elected Republican, said election workers raised concerns about two sets of voter registration applications because of what she called numerous similarities. They examine nearly 2,500 forms in total.

Lancaster officials said they also alerted two other counties to check for similar registration applications. In Monroe County, Board of Elections staff identified approximately 30 irregular forms and referred them to the district attorney’s office.

York County Chief Clerk Greg Monskie confirmed this week that his county was reviewing the suspicious forms. County Commissioner Julie Wheeler released a statement saying voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications were among “large deliveries containing thousands of election-related materials” the county elections office received from a third-party organization. If an investigation reveals suspicion of fraud, the district attorney will launch an investigation, he said.

The York district attorney’s office said it has been in contact with the board of commissioners and the elections office but did not say whether a criminal investigation had been launched.

Who left the forms in question?

Lancaster County officials have not said who they suspect is responsible. In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Wheeler attributed the documents York County received to Field+Media Corps, saying it was “acting on behalf” of the Everybody Votes Campaign. Everybody Votes is a national, nonpartisan organization that supports voter registration.

Francisco Heredia, executive director of Field+Media Corps, said in an email Tuesday that the Mesa, Ariz.-based organization had not been contacted by election officials in Pennsylvania counties and had no additional information about the allegedly problematic forms.

If contacted, Field+Media Corps said it would “work with local officials to help resolve any discrepancies to allow eligible individuals to vote.” He said there are six or seven other organizations working in the area.

A spokesperson for the Everybody Votes Campaign said in an email response this week that they had not been contacted by officials in Lancaster, York or Monroe counties about any ongoing investigations and had no additional information about the forms.

What did Trump say about the investigations?

Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris visited Pennsylvania more than any other state during their presidential campaigns because it had the most voters of all the battleground states.

Earlier this week, Trump posted on the Truth Social platform about the issue, saying that Lancaster County “was caught with 2,600 Fake Ballot Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” There is no reason to think that the ballots were part of what Lancaster was investigating.

They said 2,500 voter registration forms were reserved for investigation but did not say how many of them were problematic. Some of those forms were deemed legitimate and were processed as usual, Lancaster officials said. Voter registration forms are not ballot papers.

“They already started cheating in Lancaster. They cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes. No, we caught them in cold blood. 2,600 votes. Consider this,” the former president said during a campaign event in Allentown on Tuesday. Consider this and every vote was written by the same person.”

To be clear, Lancaster is reviewing voter registration applications, not “votes.” Lancaster officials said some of the forms contained fake names, suspicious handwriting, suspicious signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details, but did not say they were all written by the same person.

Lancaster County Prosecutor Adams said forging a voter registration application is a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine. He noted that state election law provides different penalties depending on the provision, but that violating a section could result in the loss of voting privileges for 10 years.

Is voter registration fraud a real problem?

Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said there have been cases in the past where a combination of financial incentives for people participating in voter registration efforts and poor oversight of those efforts caused problems.

He said fraudulent registration forms increase workloads and cause frustration for county election workers, but emphasized that doesn’t mean someone is at higher risk of voting improperly.

Election workers in Pennsylvania who receive a new voter registration form verify a voter’s identity and address. He also said that they sent mail to the address specified in the form. New voters and those voting in a new precinct must present identification and their signatures are checked against a poll book.

“There are a lot of checks and balances in the process to make sure the election is secure and the integrity is maintained,” Boockvar said. he said.

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top state elections official, noted the abundance of misinformation circulating ahead of Election Day on Tuesday and urged people to get their information from “trusted sources.”

“The dissemination of videos and other information devoid of context and the sharing of social posts full of half-truths and even outright lies undermines our representative democracy,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

Schmidt emphasized that various controls are in place to ensure that only voters cast ballots and only one vote per voter is counted.