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A man who was accused of orchestrating a fraudulent voter
registration scheme in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 presidential
election has pleaded guilty.
In October 2024, district attorneys in
multiple counties announced they had received thousands of
voter registration applications that did not appear to be
legitimate. The announcements made national news, and the incidents
were eventually turned over to state Attorney General Dave Sunday
for prosecution.
Guillermo Sainz, who was in charge of the operation, pleaded
guilty Monday to three misdemeanor counts of soliciting voter
registrations and will face 30 days in jail, along with a $1,000
fine and 11 months probation.
Sainz was an organizer for the Arizona-based campaign firm
Field+Media Corps, which conducted voter registration drives in
Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 election.
According to criminal complaints filed against Sainz and six
street canvassers, canvassers were paid based on how many
registration forms they submitted. That’s illegal in
Pennsylvania.
“The Office of Attorney General determined that the crimes were
not motivated by efforts to sway any election or voter rolls for
any specific party or candidate,” Sunday’s office
said in a statement. “Rather, the charged defendants were
motivated to maintain employment and income by reaching
quotas.”
According to affidavits in the case, one canvasser who was
eventually fired for not meeting her quota told investigators that,
on some days, she would “make up names and information to meet the
quota, due to fear of losing her job.”
Local election officials in Berks, Lancaster, and York counties
started taking note of the defective forms and referring them to
law enforcement. According to county officials, none of the
suspicious applications ever led to someone getting fraudulently
registered. Nevertheless,
now-President Donald Trump referenced the scheme during his
2024 campaign, falsely claiming fake ballots had been found in
Pennsylvania.
Charges against the six canvassers, some of whom face felony
counts of tampering with public records, are still pending.
A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office did not
immediately respond to a request for an update on those cases.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with
Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.