Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Voter Fraud in the US: What the Evidence Shows

The overwhelming body of research finds that voter fraud is extremely rare in the United States, though it's a topic with significant political controversy and a large gap between actual fraud rates and public perception.

What the research shows

Multiple independent studies across different methodologies converge on 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.

Historical documentation:

State-level data: Even conservative-leaning organizations' own data shows minimal fraud. Using the Heritage Foundation's own database, Brookings found: in Arizona, over 25 years there were 36 elections held and 42,626,379 ballots cast, in order to come up with 36 cases of fraud. The percentage of fraudulent votes was a minuscule .0000845%, and no election outcome was altered by ballot fraud throughout that time period. 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.

Mail-in voting specifically: Research published by the Brookings Institute found that cases of mail-in voting fraud account for merely 0.000043% of all ballots cast by mail. In the 2020 election, those cases comprised just 0.000051% of the mail ballots cast.

Voter impersonation: Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, an American "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

2020 election specifically: Even in the most scrutinized modern election, a count by the Associated Press of voter fraud cases in the six battleground states in 2020 that were disputed by Donald Trump found fewer than 475 votes in all six states combined—less than two-tenths of one percent of Biden's margin of victory. The AP study also found no systematic collusion or "rigging" in those cases. Nearly every one was an individual acting alone.

Why is voter fraud still such a hot political issue?

Despite this research, public concern remains high. A 2024 nationwide NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found 58% of Americans were concerned about voter fraud in the 2024 United States presidential election, including 88% of Donald Trump supporters and 29% of Kamala Harris supporters.

Researchers note this belief gap has political dimensions: multivariate analysis shows that 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 a wide variety of other factors. The same research also found conspiratorial thinking is strongly correlated with belief in the occurrence of types of election fraud, even when controlling for partisanship.

The policy debate

This gap between actual fraud rates and public perception fuels ongoing debates about voter ID laws and election security measures. Critics of restrictive voting laws argue that restrictive measures have no relationship (causal or otherwise) with decreased voter fraud, while proponents argue such measures are still warranted to maintain public confidence regardless of actual fraud rates.

Bottom line

The evidence is quite consistent: proven, prosecuted voter fraud in the US occurs at rates typically measured in thousandths or millionths of a percent of ballots cast, and no study has found fraud at a scale capable of altering a federal election outcome. As one Brookings researcher summarized: "There are a few cases of election fraud in every campaign. But it's not systemic. It's not widespread." That said, election security experts generally agree that safeguards remain important precisely because voter fraud is serious, which is why there are many protections built into the system to protect against fraud—even if actual incidents are rare.