KPNX, the NBC affiliate serving Phoenix and Mesa Arizona, aired a report on Monday, November 4, 2024 covering voter registration issues encountered in the county. A small, privately held firm named FieldCorps LLC claims to provide services for face to face contact for marketing, voter registration, political campaigns, etc. Per a press conference held by County Recorder Steven Richer in Mesa, Arizona, the company’s operations have caused headaches and drawn the ire of registration offices across Arizona. And beyond, as it turns out.

YouTube: Group led by Mesa vice mayor linked to 'fraudulent' voter registration forms in Pennsylvania (12 News)

In Arizona, the firm has been associated with dumping THOUSANDS of voter registration forms on county registration offices on the cut-off day. But that’s what cut-off dates are for, right? If the county needs more time to process the forms before election day, then move up the cut-off date and put more time between the cut-off and the election, right?

The problem is that by THOUSANDS, they aren’t just dropping off 2,000 or 4,000 forms. Along with other firms possibly following the same modus operandi, FieldCorps is dropping off TENS OF THOUSANDS of forms, sometimes being delivered in plastic garbage bags. The total dump on the last day for this election cycle was 90,000 forms. Sixty-one percent of Arizona’s population lives in Maricopa County but it seems unliked these canvassers pulled in 90,000 forms in the last week leading up to the cut-off. It seems like they were purposely sitting on them, queuing them up to make processing more difficult for public officials. As officials reviewed the forms, they found many were mutilated, making them difficult to process and read and many were registering names such as Mickey Mouse, Jerry Seinfeld and Donald Duck.

Clearly, the timing, the volume, the condition, and the content of these forms do not appear to reflect the work of an organization trying to smooth the process for would-be voters and ensure their registrations are processed as soon as possible to minimize any chance of their registration not being completed prior to Election Day. These practices seem to represent the opposite of those goals. They seem to reflect a goal of flooding public officials with work using OBVIOUSLY suspect forms, then hoping to generate controversy about unprocessed forms or bogus forms that result in an actual registration which might later trigger accusations of wholesale voter registration fraud or actual voting fraud.

And here’s the kicker. According to the company’s records, it is operated by the Vice Mayor of Mesa, a man named Franciso Heredia. His company, FieldCorps LLC has also been linked to investigations launched by the District Attorney of Monroe County, Pennsylvania who fielded 21 complaints from the local election board. The DA’s investigation into those 21 cases found 16 were fraudulent. Said the DA’s report: "The specific fraudulent character of these applications involve forged signatures, often with incorrect or incomplete identifying information."

wnep.com - Fraudulent voter forms caught in monroe county board of elections mail in ballots

Again, remember this company’s "specialty" is face-to-face contact with the targets of their outreach campaigns. Why were they submitting forms with names like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? And why is an elected official operating a side business involving voter registration work?

The other interesting aspect of this story in Arizona is that Steven Richer, the County Recorder in Arizona making these issues public, is a Republican who has been diligent in defending Maricopa County’s voting processes from allegations of fraud back to 2020. He lost his primary election in August of 2024 in a three-way race that broke 43.4 / 34.6 / 22 with Richer snagging 34.6%. The winner is an ultra-conservative backed by The Freedom Caucus. That primary winner, Justin Heap, was recruited for the race by Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman, another Republican who has been indicted as part of the 2020 false elector scheme. In the past four years, Richer has received multiple death threats from election conspiracy nuts claiming widespread fraud when NONE has been found.

npr.org - Stephen richer maricopa county elections arizona primary

Regardless of what happens in the election, there are going to be stories like this popping up all over the country. All signs of un-democratic forces probing the functionality of long-established, long-accepted processes, looking for ways in which uncertainty can be raised about their soundness to be exploited in support of those who cannot win by legitimate means. Anywhere this conduct occurs, whether the overall election was close or not or whether the election in a particular jurisdiction was close or not, these incidents need to be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Of course, much less of that will happen if Trump wins.

WTH