Voter fraud does occur in the US, but documented cases are rare relative to the total number of votes cast.
Here is what is known from research, audits, and prosecutions:
1. How common is it?
Most academic studies and election audits find the rate of voter fraud is very low - typically a fraction of 1% of votes cast.
•Analyses by MIT Election Data Lab, Stanford/MIT and others reviewing billions of votes cast have found rates of impersonation, double-voting, and non-citizen voting in the range of 0.0001% to 0.0025%.
•The Heritage Foundation maintains a database of proven election fraud cases and documents about 1,500 proven instances resulting in criminal convictions across all 50 states over several decades, covering federal, state and local elections. Federal audits and state reviews often find dozens to low hundreds of cases per national election cycle out of more than 150 million votes.
Courts, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency [CISA], and post-election audits found no evidence of fraud on a scale that would have changed the outcome of recent national elections, including 2020 and 2024. Other groups argue fraud is difficult to detect and therefore may be undercounted.
2. Common types of fraud that have been documented:
•In-person impersonation: Someone voting as another voter. Considered the rarest form due to ID and signature checks.
•Double voting: Voting in two states or twice in the same state.
•Voting by ineligible individuals: Including voting by non-citizens or felons where not eligible, often attributed to lack of understanding of eligibility rather than intent.
•Absentee/mail ballot fraud: Includes ballot harvesting, coercion, or forging signatures on another voter's ballot. This type accounts for a larger share of proven cases than in-person fraud.
•Registration fraud and vote buying: Falsifying registrations or paying for votes.
•Election administration issues: Altering vote counts or tampering by election workers - extremely rare but has resulted in convictions.
3. Why there is debate
Arguments that it is not a systemic problem point to the low rate of convictions, multiple layers of safeguards, and audits that have not found widespread fraud.
Arguments that it remains a concern point to:
•The potential for a small number of fraudulent votes to affect very close local races
•Vulnerabilities related to outdated voter rolls, mail-in voting, and lack of ID requirements in some states
•That detection relies heavily on being caught and prosecuted, so the true rate is unknown
4. Safeguards in place
All states have systems intended to prevent and detect fraud, including:
•Voter registration databases compared against DMV, Social Security, and death records
•Signature verification for mail ballots
•List maintenance to remove duplicate or outdated registrations
•Post-election audits and canvasses
•Voter ID requirements, which vary significantly by state - from strict photo ID to no ID required beyond attestation
•Federal and state laws making voter fraud a felony
If you are interested in a specific state, type of voting, or election year, the data varies considerably and can be looked up through that state's Secretary of State office or State Election Board audit reports.