Suspicious voter registration forms in Pennsylvania linked to Arizona city councilman's company

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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 did not respond to an email 
requesting comment.

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 of 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.

https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/11/pennsylvania-election-2024-
voter-registration-forms-field-media-corps-arizona/