Is voter fraud a problem in the US?
Short answer: Not in any meaningful or widespread sense
Despite being a highly charged political topic, the empirical research on this question is remarkably consistent: voter fraud exists, but it is extremely rare and has never been shown to occur at a scale that could alter a federal election outcome.
What the data shows
Multiple academic and nonpartisan studies spanning decades reach 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.
Even using data from groups that argue fraud is a serious problem, the numbers are tiny. The Heritage Foundation—a conservative think tank that maintains a comprehensive database specifically to document fraud cases—found that in Arizona, over 25 years and 36 elections with 42,626,379 ballots cast, there were only 36 cases of fraud, a minuscule .0000845%, with no election outcome ever altered by ballot fraud. In Pennsylvania, 30 years and 32 elections with over 100 million votes cast yielded only 39 cases of voter fraud.
Academic research using more rigorous methods finds similarly tiny rates:
Even official Trump-era investigations found nothing
Where fraud does occasionally happen
It's not literally zero — isolated cases occur, and experts note it's somewhat more consequential in small local races. Fraud is more likely to occur in and affect the outcome of local elections, where the potential impact of a small number of votes can be greater. Mail-in fraud, while still very rare, happens slightly more often than in-person impersonation fraud, according to some experts. Loyola Marymount professor Justin Levitt stated that misconduct in mail voting is "meaningfully more prevalent" than with voting in person, but that misconduct "still amounts to only a tiny fraction" of mail ballots.
The gap between perception and reality
Despite this evidence, belief in widespread fraud remains common, largely along partisan lines. Beliefs in various forms of election fraud remain widespread, despite a lack of evidence for their occurrence at any meaningful scale, and 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.
Bottom line: Voter fraud is a real but exceedingly rare phenomenon in the U.S.—measured in dozens of cases out of tens of millions of ballots in any given state—and has not been shown to change the outcome of any federal election. It is not a "problem" in the sense of threatening election integrity at scale, though individual instances are prosecuted when found, and safeguards exist specifically to catch and deter it.
Citations (15)
- Frontiers | American views about election fraud in 2024
Source excerpt: “Research conducted during the past two decades has concluded that there is no evidence of significant election fraud in contemporary American national...”
- 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...”
- 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...”
- Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth | Brennan Center for Justice
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. ”
- Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth | Brennan Center for Justice
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 than t...”
- Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth | Brennan Center for Justice
Source excerpt: “· A 2014 paper concluded that “the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0.” · A 2014 nationwide study found “no evidence of ...”
- The Facts About Mail-In Voting Fraud
Source excerpt: “Comparing the number of voter fraud cases in states where a large portion of voters receive ballots by mail to that in other states, the study found “...”
- Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “In December 2020, Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press that federal prosecutors and the FBI looked into specific election integrity...”
- Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “In the final weeks of 2020, the Trump campaign paid the Berkeley Research Group $600,000 to investigate voter fraud claims in Georgia, Pennsylvania, M...”
- Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “"No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it." ”
- Voter Fraud in US Elections? What the Data and Research Shows - Newsweek
Source excerpt: “The True 2024 Nightmare Scenario—A Harris Victory That Trump Could Overturn | Opinion4 min read · Pennsylvania Voter Fraud Allegations: Everything We ...”
- Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “Fraud is more likely to occur in and affect the outcome of local elections, where the potential impact of a small number of votes can be greater. ”
- Electoral fraud in the United States - Wikipedia
Source excerpt: “Loyola Marymount professor Justin Levitt stated in 2020 that misconduct in mail voting is "meaningfully more prevalent" than with voting in person, bu...”
- Frontiers | American views about election fraud in 2024
Source excerpt: “First and foremost, our results demonstrate that beliefs in various forms of election fraud remain widespread, despite a lack of evidence for their oc...”
- 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 ...”