Philly Inquirer: Dozens of mail ballots are going to a GOP ward leader's South Philly P.O. box
by Jeremy Roebuck and Jonathan Lai
Updated May 6, 2022
A mail ballot mystery is unfolding at an otherwise unremarkable post office box in South Philadelphia. City elections officials last week received applications from more than three dozen Republican voters across a pocket of the neighborhood. Those applications requested that mail ballots be delivered not to the voters’ homes, but to P.O. Box 54705, an address registered to a recently formed GOP political action committee, according to state data. Many of those voters told The Inquirer they have no idea why their ballots were sent there. Some said they never even applied to vote by mail. And yet one out of every six Republican ballot requests in the 26th Ward — the section of deep South Philly south of Passyunk Avenue and west of Broad Street that voted twice for Donald Trump — listed the post office box. That made it the largest single destination for ballots in the city other than nursing homes or elections offices.
(snip)
At a time when Republican lawmakers and candidates have attacked mail voting and falsely portrayed it as rife with abuse, the ballot requests and interviews with voters reveal an effort by one GOP operative to use mail ballots that may violate or at least push the boundaries of state law. For example, the mailing address portion of the form — where the P.O. box was written — is in a visibly different handwriting from the rest of the form on many of the applications, according to two sources who have reviewed the documents. And that handwriting appears on multiple forms, suggesting that the same person wrote in the P.O. box for the voters. The Philadelphia City Commissioners Office, which oversees elections, said it was aware of the situation and had been “actively monitoring” the issue.
(snip)
The District Attorney’s Office is also aware of the issue and “that there are inconsistencies with the handwriting” on the applications, spokesperson Jane Roh said. The ballots appear to be the effort of one man: Billy Lanzilotti, a 23-year-old GOP operative, South Philadelphia ward leader, and chairman of the Republican Registration Coalition, the PAC he registered at the P.O. box earlier this year. In an interview, he said everything about the situation was legal and appropriate. “I didn’t do anything that to my understanding was against the law,” he said.
‘Help pump out the Republican voter turnout’
Lanzilotti, who already runs a nearby ward, also wants to become the Republican leader for the 26th Ward. Aiming “to help pump out the Republican voter turnout,” he said, he began going door-to-door earlier this month and signing up residents of the 26th to vote by mail. He’d hand them a form on which he or people he works with had already filled out the voter’s name and his P.O. box as the destination, he said. Having the ballots sent there was a “convenience to the voter,” he said, so it could be hand-delivered to them later by someone they trusted. “There’s been a number of problems with the post office lately,” he said. ”Checks are being stolen out of the mail. They like it this way because I’m someone they trust.” But many of the voters said they don’t know who Lanzilotti is and had no idea he was submitting mail ballot applications in their names.
(snip)
Much more: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/republican-mail-ballots-south-philadephia-20220506.html
Not only GOP election fraud but attempting to sow FUD about the whole process. To be clear, Act-77 requires a voter to apply for a mail-in ballot at each election unless they select the "automatic" receipt-of-a-mail-ballot option on the application, which would then be in effect "for the election year" (meaning that year's primary, any special elections, and the general). Then the following year Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Reapply. The application can be hardcopy completed and submitted by mail or to the local Board of Elections or completed online (I do mine online).
The bizarre thing here is that Democratic registration outnumbers Republican registration by like 8 - 1.
But I suppose one can "harvest" or actually "manufacture" fake (R) votes to add to the tally from loons in the rest of the state in order to help with "close" elections. As they say, "every vote can count" (if you are the one doing the counting).
As of 5/2/22 from the state's stats (this file will change as they update it) - https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Documents/currentvotestats.xls (XLS file)
__(County)___(ID# )___(D)____(R)____(No Aff.)__(All Others)_(Total)__
PHILADELPHIA 2340 | 797,005 | 117,791 | 100,016 | 33,571 | 1,048,383
Oh and I just found this on the City Commissoners' twitter feed -
Link to tweet
@PhillyVotes
'@AP #FactCheck: CLAIM: In Philadelphia alone, True the Vote identified 1,155 “mules” who illegally collected and dropped off ballots for money.
THE FACTS: No, it didn’t.
apnews.com
FACT FOCUS: Gaping holes in the claim of 2K ballot ‘mules’
A film debuting in over 270 theaters across the United States this week uses a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the...
4:42 PM · May 3, 2022
So the rampant misinformation has already begun in earnest - including a "Citizen's United"-style fake "film". The film is done by veteran GOP loon Distort D'Newsza (I think there were DU threads on this), who belongs under the jail.
= new reply since forum marked as read
per the article, this was just discovered because the applications were found by the City Commissioners for voters in our city/county, and they have to get the whole timeline, and evidence development thing going on legitimacy.
This whole process with the mail-in ballots (that are not like the old "absentee ballots", which are still an option and use a different application form), is just over 2 years old. We have only had 4 elections (not counting any places that had a special election in between) that have used this type of ballot - the (delayed from Apr.) primary - Jun. 2020/general - Nov. 2020, primary Apr. 2021/general Nov. 2021.
What's also not clear is which type of "mail ballot" application was completed because if someone really is going to be "absent from their polling place" (and residence), then they can apply for an actual "absentee ballot" that could get directed to wherever they are in the world.
I voted in Amherst, MA when I was at UMASS my 4 years there after applying for and receiving an absentee ballot to be sent to my dorm. When I mailed it in, the city then sent it to my Division to add to their tally. I know my mom would call to tell me that when she went to vote, the ladies who were poll workers would always tell her that they got my absentee ballot right on time! 
Lol, “Kraznuts better get off his butt” 
.
My sense is that they’re out to dominate PA just like they have FL with all kinds of illegal shenanigans.
This is mobilizing people like never before-
My kids (25 and 29) and their friends are all sure to vote in this primary. In the past, they have only voted in the general election.
The only outcome for this would be one Repuke candidate taking advantage over the others. I hope they're looking into it and figuring out how it happened. It's my understanding that ballots cannot be mailed to PO Boxes, only street addresses. Is that correct? If so then the County Board of Elections office screwed up.
This needs to be addressed IMMEDIATELY before the General Election.
but here is the process - https://www.vote.pa.gov/Voting-in-PA/Pages/Mail-and-Absentee-Ballot.aspx
Here are snapshots of the forms -
MAIL-IN (NO EXCUSE)
ABSENTEE
Neither allows the official residence to be a P.O. box. BUT both forms have the option of "Where to mail the ballot" and THAT is where there is an option of designating that the ballot be sent to a P.O. box.
I know that one of the reasons that someone might have it mailed to a different location other than their primary residence is because they may have someone who is temporarily in a rehab facility and has a regular place of residence, but still wants to vote and won't be at their primary residence for receipt of the ballot, so the ballot can be sent to that temp location.
The main difference between them other than the no-excuse having the option to have the mail-in type be "annual" (for the rest of that year), is that for the absentee one, it is declaring that you "will be absent from your municipality" whereas the regular one does not require that to be the case. In the case for those who are working overseas (non-military as the base will have a P.O. box), there is a whole process for that which can also include emailing of the ballot for completion and mailing back - https://www.vote.pa.gov/Voting-in-PA/pages/military-and-overseas-voters.aspx
OVERSEAS /REGISTRATION AND ABSENTEE
However per the article, there may have also been the completion of the section "8" of the no excuse or section "B2" of the absentee that indicates "Help with this form", where the voter can designate a 3rd party to sign for them. And this may have happened if the unwitting voter provided the fraudster the other info for identification purposes (license #, SS#, etc) but never signed the form, and the fraudster completed that section as the 3rd party and put a "mark" in to represent the voter's "mark" to consent to it.
The article had several mentions of how there was "different handwriting" in different sections on the ballot request forms they did receive.
