Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

This is a topic with significant political debate, so let me look at the factual research and data on this.# Is Voter Fraud a Problem in the US?

Based on extensive research from across the political spectrum — including studies by the conservative Heritage Foundation, academic researchers, government agencies, and nonpartisan organizations — the evidence consistently shows that voter fraud is extremely rare in the United States and does not occur at a scale that affects election outcomes.

What the Data Shows

The most comprehensive conservative database confirms this. The Heritage Foundation—a conservative think tank that maintains the most extensive voter fraud database—found 1,561 instances of voter fraud that resulted in 1,325 convictions — but this is across decades of elections nationwide. When Brookings researchers analyzed this same database for competitive swing states, they 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 fraudulent vote rate of .0000845%, with no election outcome altered. Similarly, 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.

Academic and government research reaches the same conclusion. Research conducted during the past two decades has concluded that there is no evidence of significant election fraud in contemporary American national elections. A 2014 nationwide study found "no evidence of widespread impersonation fraud" in the 2012 election, and a specialized Department of Justice unit examined the 2002 and 2004 federal elections and was able to prove that 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast were fraudulent.

Even expanded investigations after 2020 found minimal fraud. After the contested 2020 election, the Associated Press contacted local election officials in six swing states and found 475 potential voter fraud cases—an extraordinarily small percentage of the more than 25 million ballots that were cast in those six states. 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 another state in 2020, out of almost 6 million ballots cast in Ohio that year.

Mail-in voting, often cited as more vulnerable, is also rare: Brookings Institution researchers examined cases of fraud reported during elections in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 and estimated there were about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast, on average.

Why Findings Vary From Public Perception

Experts note a consistent gap between political rhetoric and documented reality. As one Brennan Center expert explained, "We do oftentimes see dramatic claims by state officials about voter fraud, but what we've seen over the years is that investigations... have yielded very, very small instances of actual prosecutions." Part of the discrepancy comes from how fraud is counted: conservative-leaning groups often lump cases where a voter thought they were eligible together with cases involving actual intent to commit fraud—numbers that "don't distinguish between... an allegation that may be incorrect or a situation where someone has voted in good faith incorrectly."

Courts have reached similar conclusions. Following the 2020 election, Trump and his allies filed 62 lawsuits challenging the election based largely on fraud claims; only one succeeded before being overturned, with judges appointed by Trump himself concluding there was not widespread ballot fraud.

The Gap Between Belief and Reality

Interestingly, public perception diverges sharply from documented evidence. A 2024 survey found that each type of election fraud examined was considered common or occasional by a third or more of American registered voters, and partisanship correlates strongly with these beliefs, with Republicans consistently more likely to state that types of election fraud are common, even controlling for other factors.

Bottom Line

The research consensus across government agencies, academic studies, courts, and even conservative organizations tracking fraud cases is that voter fraud exists but is vanishingly rare — occurring at rates far too small to influence election outcomes, even in closely contested races. As one Brennan Center report summarized, the incident rate is so low that an American "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls." That said, officials emphasize that safeguards (like signature verification, voter list maintenance, and criminal penalties) remain important precisely because they help keep fraud rates this low.