Hundreds of fraudulent voter registration forms have been found in Pennsylvania, raising fears about election integrity in this key battleground state.

Ray D’Agostino, vice chairman of the Lancaster County board of commissioners, said at a news conference Friday. in question election officials found “apparent incidents of attempted voter registration fraud” in the Republican-leaning county.

Mr. D’Agostino shared that “about 2,500” voter registration forms contained fraud and were discovered during a routine review process. A review of the forms determined that approximately 60 percent of the 2,500 applications were fraudulent, and not all were reviewed at the time of the press conference.

While an apparent plot to rig votes appears to have been thwarted, fears of fraud in the upcoming election are growing on social media. Harrison Fields, director of media and public relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation, reported the news to X and wrote“SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.”

Ryan Fournier, president of Students for Trump. he asked“What’s going on in Pennsylvania?”

“There are reports that thousands of fake ballot papers have been seized and their processing has been stopped. Don’t tell me voter fraud doesn’t exist. “They will do anything to stop Donald J. Trump from taking back the White House,” he added.

Pennsylvania state lawmaker Barb Gleim urged people to be “cautious across the state” after fraudulent applications emerged. In a post on X, he wrote“The vote of every legal U.S. citizen matters, and so does the integrity of our elections.”

Pennsylvania Republican leader Brian Cutler in question “Pennsylvanians have demanded that our elections be safe, secure and accurate, and I appreciate the work of the Lancaster County Board of Elections and the district attorney’s office to catch and root out fraud in our election process,” he said in a statement.

“This investigation is a stark reminder of how much effort criminals are willing to go to influence our election process,” he added.

Local officials at the press conference shared Information about the incident is limited because the investigation is ongoing.

Lancaster district attorney Heather Adams told reporters at the news conference that election workers noticed “a large number of applications had the same handwriting, were filled out on the same day, and some were already registered voters and the signatures on file were not correct.” does not match the signatures on the applications.”

But he said the suspected fraudulent forms appeared to be part of a “large-scale voter registration harvesting operation dating back to June,” although most of the applications were submitted after Aug. 15.

Ms Adams said not all of the applications were fraudulent and that there were forms completed legally. He also said there appeared to be an “organized effort” behind the applications and promised authorities would investigate “exactly who was involved and how far it went.” The district attorney shared that “at least two other counties” had received similar applications but declined to name the other counties.

Meanwhile, Mr. D’Agostino said this effort does not appear to affect any particular party. Ms Adams suggested it would “not matter” whether the registration forms were for one party or another, as their presence “increases the likelihood of us engaging in voter fraud”.

He added: “Luckily we stopped the first part. This was to give the books an audience that perhaps they shouldn’t have had. But the second part is whether anyone intends to turn this application into a fraudulent ballot. And to all intents and purposes, that has been stopped.”

During the press conference, officials sought to reassure voters about the integrity of the upcoming election by stating that election workers caught fraudulent applications during a routine review process and before votes were cast.