Group under investigation for possible voter fraud in Delaware County

MEDIA, Pa. (WPVI) -- The issue of voter fraud has become part of the political conversation this year, with complaints and warnings coming primarily from the Republican side of the coin.

Thursday morning, Congressman Patrick Meehan called for United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch to launch an investigation of FieldWorks LLC.

FieldWorks bills itself as a Democratic Grassroots organization.

State Police raided its Delaware County office earlier this week, looking for evidence of voter registration fraud.

Meehan and other local Republicans question whether roughly 7,000 registrations were submitted by the Oct. 11 deadline and other irregularities.

"What do you do about the 52 registrations in which there's no valid address? It's not that there's no valid address. There's an address listed. There's just no such location in Delaware County," said Meehan.

FieldWorks denied any wrongdoing in a statement to Action News, and said it's cooperating with investigators.

Meehan's opponent for the 7th Congressional District, Mary Ellen Balchunis, says she's never heard of FieldWorks, and said she was unaware of the investigation.

"I believe this is part of the Republican effort to suppress voter turnout," said Mary Ellen Balchunis.

Congressman Meehan denied the claim.

David Thornbugh is president of the Committee of Seventy, a government watchdog group.

His message: Just tune it out and vote.

"The candidates and parties trying to leverage just a few votes here and there. It's hard to tell what exactly is going on with these investigations," said Thornbugh.

Statement from FieldWorks:

"The integrity of our electoral system is a foundation of our democracy, which is why FieldWorks has the most rigorous quality controls in the industry and zero tolerance for fraud. Our team works closely with state and local officials to ensure that we exceed the requirements of the law.

FieldWorks proactively brings any problems with registration forms to the attention of local officials.

Fieldworks is now working with county officials to provide them with information on our program and applications they are investigating. In keeping with our regular practice, we will work aggressively with authorities to seek the prosecution of anyone involved in wrongdoing.

As this is an ongoing investigation, we'll decline further comment until the authorities conclude their efforts."