Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

I'll research the prevalence and evidence of voter fraud in U.S. elections to give you a clear answer.

In the United States voter fraud is documented, but multiple studies, databases and investigations find it vanishingly rare - not at a scale to change statewide or presidential outcomes:

How rare is it?

•Documented voter fraud is real but "vanishingly rare — incident rates between 0.0003% and 0.0025% across studied contests, and no major academic study, court ruling, or official investigation has found evidence of fraud at a scale sufficient to change a statewide election outcome" - meaning roughly 1 to 25 fraudulent votes per million cast.

•The Brennan Center's seminal report reviewed elections meticulously studied for fraud and "found incident rates between 0.00004 percent and 0.0009 percent".

•A study in The Washington Post found "31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast".

•A U.S. Department of Justice review of the 2002–2004 federal elections "could prove fraud in 0.00000013% of ballots and found no coordinated effort to tilt an election".

•An Arizona State University records search "catalogued 2,068 alleged cases of every fraud type since 2000 — a rate researchers called infinitesimal".

The most comprehensive counts

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, keeps an Election Fraud Database it calls "a sampling" that "does not capture all cases".

•"As of August 2026 it listed 1,619 cases spanning several decades. Set against the more than 1 billion votes cast in that time, that is under 0.0002% of ballots — roughly 1 in 600,000".

•Another summary: "lists 1,619 cases from 1982 to 2025. That is about 7 for every 10 million ballots cast in federal general elections alone".

•In the 22 federal general elections from 1982 to 2024, Americans cast about 2.26 billion ballots.

Specific state examples show the same pattern:

•"In Arizona, going back 25 years produced 36 cases of voter fraud out of 42,626,379 ballots — 0.0000845%"

•"An Associated Press review of the six disputed 2020 battleground states found fewer than 475 possible fraud cases out of more than 25 million ballots — under 0.002%"

•A separate AP investigation described as finding "fewer than 475 confirmed instances across six contested 2020 battleground states — a number far too small to affect presidential outcomes"

Across studies cited in one fact brief: "Across every study cited here, documented fraud runs below 0.002% of ballots cast — and in most, far below".

What kinds of fraud occur?

Not all types are equally common.

•In Heritage's data: "387 involve absentee ballots" while "That kind [impersonation at the polls] is among the rarest: 34 of the 1,619 cases name it".

•Courts have noted the same. The Fifth Circuit noted "only two convictions for in-person voter impersonation fraud out of 20 million votes cast in the decade" before Texas passed its law.

•A review of the Justice Department's own list from October 2002 to September 2005 found "Of the 24 people convicted of illegal voting... None had voted in someone else's name".

Other categories tracked include false registration (386 cases), felon voting (234), vote buying (208), duplicate voting (177) and noncitizens (98) in Heritage's 1,619 cases.

Has fraud ever changed an election?

Yes, but only in small, close races - not presidential:

•"Fraud has forced at least one election to be re-run: North Carolina's 9th congressional district in 2018, after an absentee-ballot scheme. It has not come near a presidential result".

In 2020, reversing the presidential result would have required wiping out "42,918 votes" across Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin combined, where "Heritage lists 17 cases from that election in those states".

Recounts, audits, lawsuits and contests in the 2020 battleground states "did not change the presidential result" and Attorney General Bill Barr said in Dec. 2020 "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election".

Why the gap between perception and data?

•Heritage itself says the list "obviously cannot list fraud that goes undetected" and describes vulnerabilities in the system.

•Critics argue undetected fraud could be larger, while researchers note every empirical test - from DOJ probes to state audits - has found rates that are "infinitesimal" and that concentrated fraud at the scale needed to flip a statewide margin of thousands would require a conspiracy that leaves detectable patterns in paper records, audits and recounts, none of which have been found.

In short: Voter fraud exists and is prosecuted when found, and it has overturned at least one congressional race. As a systemic problem affecting national elections, the evidence across conservative, nonpartisan and liberal studies consistently puts the rate at well under 0.002%, often under 0.0001%, of ballots cast.

Citations (3)

1brennancenter.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
Backs: “Documented voter fraud is real but "vanishingly rare — incident rates between 0.0003% and 0.0025% across studied contests, and no major academic study, court ruling, or official investigation has found evidence of fraud at a scale sufficient to change a statewide election outcome" - meaning roughly 1 to 25 fraudulent…”
2claimyourvoterpower.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Election Fraud & Security — ClaimYourVoterPower.org Fact Brief
Backs: “A study in The Washington Post found "31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast". A U.S. Department of Justice review of the 2002–2004 federal elections "could prove fraud in 0.00000013% of ballots and found no coordinated effort to tilt an election".”
3truthbased.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Is Voter Fraud a Real Problem?
Backs: “An Arizona State University records search "catalogued 2,068 alleged cases of every fraud type since 2000 — a rate researchers called infinitesimal". The most comprehensive counts. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, keeps an Election Fraud Database it calls "a sampling" that "does not capture all…”