Dozens of mail ballots are going to a GOP ward leader’s South Philly P.O. box, raising ‘ballot harvesting’ concerns

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.

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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.

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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.

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Much more: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/republican-mail-ballots-south-philadephia-20220506.html

Information as of 05/02/2022


__(County)___(ID# )___(D)____(R)____(No Aff.)__(All Others)_(Total)__

PHILADELPHIA 2340 | 797,005 | 117,791 | 100,016 | 33,571 | 1,048,383

Philadelphia City Commissioners
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'@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.
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