Keystone Today

Votes from Pennsylvania’s  nursing homes are being inspected by Beaver County GOP operatives. 

Beaver County GOP head Jim Christiana, a former state representative, said the “highly improbable patterns” were noted when mail-in ballots from nursing homes were inspected. 

"I'm not a handwriting expert or a law enforcement agent," Christiana said. "I want (Lozier) to review the information to determine if there should be a criminal investigation. In my personal opinion, a criminal investigation should be opened up."

Pennsylvania’s vote count was certified this week. 

Christiana filed a right-to-know request last week in Beaver County so he could inspect close to 2,000 mail-in ballot envelopes. 

In addition, he requested forms from eight voting precincts where nursing homes are located. Christiana felt compelled to look into the matter after hearing complaints from a number of voters who claimed they had been informed that they had requested mail-in ballots, when in actuality, they had not. 

Also of concern was that a significant number of mail-in ballot requests were made from long-term care facilities and received the same day. 

While Christiana began reviewing the ballots on Monday, he reportedly was unable to complete the process due to “the overwhelming amount of fraud and potentially criminal behavior,” The Times reported.

Sean Parnell, former Republican candidate for the 17th congressional District of Pennsylvania, took to Twitter on Nov. 25 to express his concern over the fraud allegations.

“I’ve seen these nursing home ballots first hand here in #PA17,” he wrote. “Handwriting is identical. Signatures appear to be forged. Hundreds if not thousands of votes in question.

This needs to be investigated immediately.”

This isn’t the first time controversy has caused voters to question the integrity of the state’s processes. 

In 2018, Lisa Marie Deeley surrendered her notary license after failing to verify the identity of a woman who pretended to be the wife of her friend Charles J. Costello. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Costello was going through a divorce with his actual wife at the time and the documentation that Deeley notarized caused his wife to lose her rights to his death benefits.

In an opinion piece for Keystone Today, Jennifer Stefano, chief innovation officer and vice president at the Commonwealth Foundation, said the governor made swift changes to voting rules that has raised concerns. 

“In Pennsylvania, Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover for hurrying through new voting rules that bypassed reasonable deadlines or restrictions. The result? Many voters now have deep suspicion about wide-scale voter fraud in Philadelphia.”

Stefano went on to state that the new voting rules were enforced despite many knowing the chaos mass mail-in ballots would create.

“The usual stages of ballot security are lost: unlike absentee ballots, some people are claiming they received unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, a practice Pennsylvania does not allow,” she wrote. “Could it be ballot applications were illegally sent or is it simply that voters forgot they signed up to get them?”

Trump Campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani also raised concern over alleged voter fraud observed in Philadelphia - one of the cities that contributed to Joe Biden's election victory. 

“The number of voter fraud cases in Philadelphia could fill a library,” Giuliani said during a recent press conference. “Just a few weeks ago there was a conviction for voter fraud and one two weeks before that.”