Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Is US voter fraud widespread? I'll pull the latest data and studies to assess the scale of the problem.

No — according to the weight of academic studies, government investigations, and court reviews, widespread, outcome-changing voter fraud is not a problem in the US. Isolated fraud does occur at very low rates.

What the evidence shows

Multiple nationwide and state-level studies have come to the same conclusion, that there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

The consensus phrasing across studies is:

> the evidence is unequivocal: voter fraud exists, but only at vanishingly small rates.

> The weight of rigorous academic studies, major news investigations, and official reviews converge: voter fraud exists but is vanishingly rare in absolute and relative terms — orders of magnitude below levels that would flip national elections.

Other summaries note:

•Multiple studies have proven that widespread or coordinated voter fraud [...] is extremely rare

•there is no credible evidence that such a thing happens at any significant scale in the United States of America

The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which has spent years studying election integrity, has concluded that voter fraud is “vanishingly rare”.

How rare is "rare"?

Measured rates are typically in the ten-thousandths to millionths of a percent:

•The Brennan Center's review of meticulously studied elections found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.

•A comprehensive 2014 study found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast.

•Two Arizona State University studies found similarly negligible rates: 10 cases of voter impersonation fraud nationwide from 2000–2012.

•Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's review of 84 million votes cast in 22 states yielded 14 instances referred for prosecution, which amounts to a 0.000017 percent fraud rate.

•A Department of Justice unit examining the 2002 and 2004 federal elections was able to prove that 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast were fraudulent.

Other analyses:

•A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of mail ballots over two decades called mail-in fraud “exceedingly rare” and reported rates on the order of 0.00006 percent of votes nationally

•Brookings' review of Heritage Foundation case data calculated examples such as Arizona where fraudulent votes were roughly 0.0000845 percent across decades of elections

•Overall conclusion: proven voter fraud is extremely rare relative to the number of votes cast — measured in orders of magnitude of 0.0000X percent — and no rigorous body of research has shown fraud at the scale necessary to flip major U.S. elections

What the largest fraud database shows

The conservative Heritage Foundation maintains the most-cited public compilation of proven election fraud cases. It lists roughly 1,561 "proven instances" yielding about 1,325 convictions across its time window.

As of 2025, they've found about 1,500 proven cases since the 1980s. Even Heritage lists that as evidence it's rare, not systemic — 1,500 cases compared to billions of ballots cast over that period.

Heritage itself presents that as proof of a real and vast problem, but analyses of that database by others note:

•Claims that the database contains almost 1,100 proven instances of voter fraud are grossly exaggerated and devoid of context.

•When the Brennan Center analyzed it, there were only 10 cases involving in-person voter-impersonation fraud and only 41 involving noncitizen voting.

Types of fraud that do occur

When fraud is proven, it tends to be small-scale schemes: bogus registrations, isolated absentee-ballot tampering, or dishonest election workers, rather than mass conspiracies.

Courts have also found little evidence of in-person impersonation — the only type a photo ID law would prevent:

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

•The Fourth Circuit noted North Carolina "failed to identify even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud in North Carolina"

2020 election audits and investigations

After the 2020 presidential election:

•The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) declared: "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history"

•CISA and state officials stated there was "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised"

•Then-Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election

•The Associated Press undertook a review of the six battleground states and found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of over 25 million ballots cast in those states

Dozens of federal and state courts dismissed fraud claims for lack of evidence.

Bottom line for policy

No credible source claims zero risk; rather, consistent studies conclude the risk is infinitesimal and insufficient to alter election outcomes given current safeguards.

Researchers generally agree that limited but real instances justify targeted enforcement, prosecution, and administrative fixes (such as list maintenance and absentee-ballot controls), while broad claims of widespread fraud that would justify major restrictions on voting access lack empirical support.

Citations (2)

1brennancenter.orgNonprofits and think tanks
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
Backs: “How rare is "rare"? Measured rates are typically in the ten-thousandths to millionths of a percent: The Brennan Center's review of meticulously studied elections found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.”
2factually.coLow provenance
How rare is voter fraud compared to total votes in US ...
Backs: “A Department of Justice unit examining the 2002 and 2004 federal elections was able to prove that 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast were fraudulent. Other analyses: A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of mail ballots over two decades called mail-in fraud “exceedingly rare” and reported rates on the order of…”