The Phoenix-based operative who helped run a major voter registration push in Pennsylvania heading into the 2024 presidential race is headed to jail after admitting he broke state election law.
Guillermo Sainz Gurrola, a field director who oversaw registration work in several counties, pleaded guilty Monday to election-related offenses and was ordered to serve one month in county jail. The court also fined him $1,000 and placed him on probation as part of the sentence.
According to The Associated Press, Sainz Gurrola admitted to three misdemeanor counts of solicitation of registration, a charge tied to offering pay or other incentives based on how many voter registration forms canvassers turned in. Prosecutors told the court that those incentives, paired with high quotas, pushed some workers to fabricate or falsify applications in order to boost their paychecks.
Investigation and charges
The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General announced criminal filings in October 2025 against Sainz and six canvassers after reviews of thousands of forms in Berks, Lancaster and York counties. Investigators said the alleged scheme appeared driven by personal financial gain rather than an effort to tilt election results. The office named the canvassers, noted that the investigation remains active and said additional offenses were under review.
Where it started
County election staff in Lancaster first raised alarms, flagging roughly 2,500 registration applications that did not pass the smell test. Many showed similar handwriting, questionable signatures or bad addresses. Those forms were set aside for verification instead of being processed, according to Lancaster County's elections page.
That verification process is designed to keep irregular or fraudulent applications from ever being added to the voter rolls while investigators sort out which entries are legitimate.
Who ran the drives
Prosecutors have linked the Pennsylvania registration work to Field+Media Corps, a consulting firm that worked for the Everybody Votes campaign, as reported by Spotlight PA. Court affidavits and public filings say Sainz oversaw Pennsylvania operations from May through October 2024.
What the law says
Pennsylvania’s election code bars campaigns and groups from paying or offering payment based on the number of voter registrations collected. Solicitation of registration is a misdemeanor that carries a mandatory minimum one-month jail term and fines under state law. Those provisions are codified in 25 Pa.C.S. § 1713, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
At Monday’s hearing, Sainz Gurrola apologized in court. His attorney, Timothy M. Stengel, declined further comment, The Associated Press reported. The judge accepted the plea and imposed the one-month jail term, $1,000 fine and probation.
The case drew national attention from the moment Lancaster officials spotted the suspicious forms. Then-candidate Donald Trump quickly seized on the story in 2024, claiming that “2,600” fraudulent votes had been found. Fact-checkers and county officials pushed back, noting that he was conflating registration applications with actual ballots. PolitiFact and county statements emphasized that the suspect registration forms were pulled out of the regular stream and that the built-in checks stopped improper entries from turning into votes.
State officials have repeatedly stressed that the ongoing probe is focused on misconduct tied to pay incentives, not a broader plot to flip results. “We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election,” Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General press release.
Prosecutors say the investigation remains active and that more filings and court dates could follow. County election officials and voting-rights groups point to the episode as proof that the verification steps inside Pennsylvania’s registration system are doing what they are supposed to do, catching irregularities before they ever reach the voter rolls.
