Mesa vice mayor investigated in Pennsylvania over irregular voter signatures

Prosecutors in the battleground state of Pennsylvania were investigating questionable voter registration applications involving a firm owned by a Mesa City Council member.

Prosecutors in two Pennsylvania counties confirmed they were looking into irregular voter registration signatures tied to Field+Media Corps, which also had been the subject of 2023 complaints in Arizona.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office confirmed it had deferred two separate complaints from Mohave and Navajo counties to Maricopa County prosecutors.

Mesa City Vice Mayor Francisco Heredia, a registered Democrat, runs the company, which conducts voter outreach efforts and registers voters.

Heredia did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic’s request for comment. The Republic could not reach Eduardo Sainz, who was listed as a member of Field+Media Corps on the Arizona Corporation Commission documents.

Prosecutors in Monroe and York counties in Pennsylvania announced this week they were investigating thousands of last-minute voter registration applications submitted by Heredia’s company. The story was first reported by VoteBeat.

Irregularities included voters registering the names of dead people and potentially hundreds of duplicate registrations.

The deadline to register to vote in the swing state was Oct. 21. Pennsylvania was considered a must-win state in the 2024 presidential race.

Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancusco wrote in a Facebook post the Monroe County Board of Elections "identified approximately 30 irregular forms.”

Several had been found to be “fraudulent” because they were not authorized by the people named on the applications. In one case, an application named a dead person, he wrote.

In a news release on Wednesday, York County officials said the election office there received a batch of 3,087 voter registration applications last week.

After some applications were identified as “questionable,” the York County elections’ office referred the matter to the York County district attorney's office for review.

The review found:

• About 47% of applications were verified as legitimate and approved.

• About 29% of applications were found to have incomplete information. Approval of those applications was pending additional information from the applicants.

• About 24% of applications were declined and were undergoing further review by the York County District Attorney's Office.

“Of the declined applications, 85% are duplicate registration requests,” according to the news release.

Those referrals were under criminal investigation by the chief county detective, according to a news release on Thursday from the York County District Attorney's Office.

Greg Monskie, the chief clerk of York County, confirmed to The Arizona Republic that Field+Media Corps was the firm submitting the forms that are under review.

A third county in Pennsylvania is also reeling with the allegations of fraudulent voter registration forms.

Lancaster County announced on Oct. 25 elections staff had identified “incidents of suspected voter registration fraud.” That county received about 2,500 voter registration forms that were separated and contained, county officials wrote.

It was not immediately clear if Heredia’s business had submitted forms to Lancaster County.

However, Mancusco wrote in a post on Facebook that Field+Media Corps was “working out of Lancaster County” as well as his own Monroe County.

Field+Media Corps was working with the Everybody Votes Campaign to register voters in Pennsylvania. That organization is a national group that focuses on registering people of color.

In a statement to The Republic, the Everybody Votes Campaign said it had not been contacted by officials in Lancaster, York or Monroe counties about an ongoing investigation and had no information about the forms in question.

"If contacted, we intend to work with our partners and the election officials to quickly resolve any discrepancies and ensure that all eligible registrants have an opportunity to vote next week," the campaign wrote in the statement.

Field+Media Corps also subject of Arizona-based investigation

In Arizona, third-party voter registration drives are common. Arizona voters can register online through ServiceArizona, but third-party private voter organizations can do drives aimed at registering eligible people and submit applications on their behalf.

Heredia’s business is also under investigation in Arizona by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, a spokesperson with the office confirmed.

Mohave and Navajo counties flagged 10 and 14 voter registration forms, respectively, and referred them to the Attorney General’s Office in 2023.

“However, the Attorney General’s Office deferred to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to investigate as the forms had initially been submitted to Maricopa County before being forwarded to Mohave and Navajo Counties,” Richie Taylor, a spokesperson with the office, told The Republic in an email.

A spokesperson with Maricopa County Attorney’s Office confirmed the office had opened an investigation, but it had no additional information to share.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office told The Republic in a statement that it receives voter registration forms from a “myriad of third-party voter registration groups.”

The Recorder’s Office confirmed it had found Field+Media Corps had submitted several inaccurate or incomplete voter registration forms.

The website for Field+Media Corps, as well as the site for Heredia’s re-election campaign, has been taken down.

The announcements of voter fraud probes in two pivotal swing states days before Election Day will further heighten tensions and scrutiny of the voting process.

In recent election cycles, Republican candidates, including Donald Trump and Kari Lake, have repeatedly complained about unproven widespread voter fraud and have falsely claimed their elections in 2020 and 2022, respectively, were stolen.

Who is Francisco Heredia?

Heredia was re-elected to a second term on the Mesa City Council in July and is currently the vice mayor.

He owns a second business that specializes in sign printing called The Union Print Shop.

Before Heredia was appointed to the council in 2017, he worked for both the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and the United States Census Bureau. He also was the national field director of Mi Familia Vota and One Arizona, the KidsCare outreach coordinator for the Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment System and as a prevention specialist for Chicanos Por la Causa.

Sainz also worked as the national field director of Mi Familia Vota.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

Reporter Maritza Dominguez covers Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek and can be reached at maritza.dominguez@arizonarepublic.com or 480-271-0646. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @maritzacdom.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ vice mayor investigated over Pennsylvania voter registration forms