Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Short answer: It exists, but it's extremely rare and has never been shown to affect a national election outcome.

This is a politically charged topic, so it's worth looking at what the empirical research actually shows rather than relying on partisan talking points.

What the data shows

Multiple independent analyses — including from conservative and nonpartisan sources — converge on the same conclusion: documented voter fraud is vanishingly rare relative to the number of ballots cast.

•Heritage Foundation data (a conservative think tank) analyzed by Brookings found that in Arizona, Heritage had to go back 25 years, over which there were 36 elections held and 42,626,379 ballots cast, in order to come up with 36 cases of fraud — a rate of about .0000845%, with no election outcome altered by ballot fraud. In Pennsylvania, Heritage data goes back 30 years and covers 32 elections with over 100 million votes cast and found only 39 cases of voter fraud.

•The Brennan Center for Justice reviewed studies going back decades and found incident rates for voter impersonation fraud of between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent, concluding it's more likely someone "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

•After the 2020 election, an Associated Press investigation across six battleground states found 475 potential voter fraud cases — an extraordinarily small percentage of the more than 25 million ballots that were cast in those six states.

•A nonpartisan expert summarized it this way: "Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a scale that would affect an election outcome," said Alice Clapman, senior counsel for voting rights at the Brennan Center for Justice.

•Even Republican-led investigations in states like Ohio have found similarly tiny numbers. Ohio's GOP Secretary of State announced in 2022 his office had found 75 voters who allegedly cast a ballot in the state and another state in 2020, out of almost 6 million ballots cast — while noting "voter fraud continues to be exceedingly rare" in the state.

Why fraud at scale is difficult

Part of the reason fraud is so rare is structural. Any widespread voter fraud is unlikely due to the decentralized nature of American elections — there are more than 10,000 independent voting jurisdictions in the U.S. Additionally, Democrats and Republicans have teams of lawyers, armed with depositions, allowed into the rooms where counting is going on — so assuming massive fraud requires assuming those lawyers are either incompetent or lazy, which isn't the case.

Nuance: it's not literally zero, and type matters

•Mail-in vs. in-person: Experts agree fraud is somewhat more common with mail ballots than in-person voting, but still minimal. A University of Chicago political scientist noted that while mail voting creates more opportunity for misconduct, "the risk of widespread fraud is probably very minimal, even with all-mail elections." Brookings-cited research estimated about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast, on average.

•Local elections: Because they involve far fewer votes and tighter margins, local races are more susceptible to being swayed by a handful of fraudulent votes, and isolated convictions or overturned local contests do occur — unlike national elections.

•Inflated claims: Much of the public perception of "widespread" fraud comes from conflating honest mistakes with intentional fraud. As one expert put it, conservative-leaning groups often lump all cases where the voter thought they were eligible along with cases where someone intended to commit fraud — "these numbers don't distinguish between...an allegation that may be incorrect or a situation where someone has voted in good faith incorrectly."

The perception gap

Despite this consistent research record, public belief in widespread fraud remains high, particularly among those who distrust election outcomes. Surveys show partisanship correlates strongly with endorsement of types of election fraud, with Republicans consistently more likely to state that types of election fraud are common, even when controlling for other factors, and this belief is also linked to broader conspiratorial thinking.

Bottom line

Voter fraud isn't a myth — isolated cases are prosecuted every election cycle, and it's taken seriously enough that there are legal penalties and systems designed to catch it. But as a systemic threat capable of swinging a state or national election, decades of research across partisan lines have found no evidence that it rises to that level.

Citations (13)

1brookings.eduNonprofits and think tanks
How widespread is election fraud in the United States? Not very | Brookings
Source excerpt: “Looking at the seven closest states, we find for instance that in Arizona, Heritage had to go back 25 years, over which there were 36 elections held a...”
2brookings.eduNonprofits and think tanks
How widespread is election fraud in the United States? Not very | Brookings
Source excerpt: “In the highly contested state of Pennsylvania, Heritage data goes back 30 years and covers 32 elections with over 100 million votes cast and found onl...”
3brennancenter.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
Source excerpt: “The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for · voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent...”
4brennancenter.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
Source excerpt: “Given this tiny · incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American · “will be struck by lightning th...”
5npr.orgNews and mediaquality 0.93
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Source excerpt: “In their analysis, they found 475 potential voter fraud cases — which amounts to an extraordinarily small percentage of the more than 25 million ballo...”
6npr.orgNews and mediaquality 0.93
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Source excerpt: ““Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a scale that would affect an election outc...”
7npr.orgNews and mediaquality 0.93
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Source excerpt: “In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced in 2022 his office had found 75 voters who allegedly cast a ballot in the state and anot...”
8thehill.comNews and mediaquality 0.90
Election fraud rare in US elections, despite persistent claims otherwise
Source excerpt: “Any widespread voter fraud is unlikely due to the decentralized nature of American elections. There are more than 10,000 independent voting jurisdicti...”
9brookings.eduNonprofits and think tanks
How widespread is election fraud in the United States? Not very | Brookings
Source excerpt: “And—in one of the least well-known aspects of the vote count—Democrats and Republicans have teams of lawyers, armed with depositions, that are allowed...”
10wikipedia.orgEncyclopedias and referencequality 0.83
Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “University of Chicago political scientist Anthony Fowler said in 2020 that fraudulently voting on behalf of someone else, tampering with ballots, coer...”
11sciline.orgNonprofits and think tanks
What research tells us about voter fraud - SciLine
Source excerpt: “Researchers at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, examined cases of fraud reported during elections in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 an...”
12npr.orgNews and mediaquality 0.93
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Source excerpt: “Clapman said conservative-leaning groups often lump all cases where the voter thought they were eligible along with cases where someone intended to co...”
13frontiersin.orgAcademic
Frontiers | American views about election fraud in 2024
Source excerpt: “Our multivariate analysis shows that partisanship correlates strongly with endorsement of types of election fraud, with Republicans consistently more ...”