Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Short answer: Documented voter fraud is extremely rare in the US, but public perception of it as a problem is widespread.

What the research consistently shows:

Academic and government studies spanning decades have found remarkably low rates of fraud. A frequently-cited Brennan Center analysis reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent, leading researchers to conclude it is more likely an American "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

A major investigative review found a study of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases in 50 states between 2000 and 2012 found the level of fraud was infinitesimal compared with the 146 million voters registered over the 12-year period, with the analysis finding only 10 cases of voter impersonation.

State-level breakdowns reinforce this:

Even on mail-in voting, which is often targeted by fraud claims: researchers at the Brookings Institution examined cases of fraud reported during elections in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 and estimated there were about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast, on average. On noncitizen voting specifically, a 2014 paper concluded that "the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0."

Even conservative-leaning sources find similar results: The Heritage Foundation maintains perhaps the most expansive fraud database, but even using their data, Brookings determined the share of reported cases of fraud over the past 13 to 38 years across several key swing states is less than 1 percent.

Errors get mistaken for fraud: Many "fraud" cases turn out to be administrative mistakes. For example, New Jersey's Governor announced that about 6,600 people who identified as noncitizens were erroneously registered to vote in 2023 and 2024, due to a software error, and a preliminary analysis showed fewer than 400 of those people actually voted.

But there's a major gap between evidence and perception

Despite this evidence, public concern remains high. Despite the fact election fraud is extremely rare, six in ten U.S. adults were concerned about it ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with fear particularly pronounced among Republican-leaning voters at 86 percent, versus 55 percent of Independents and 33 percent of Democratic-leaning voters. A 2024 academic survey similarly found substantial proportions of U.S. registered voters believe that these types of election fraud are common.

Bottom line

The weight of nonpartisan academic research, government reviews, and even conservative advocacy group data converges on one conclusion: individual, isolated instances of fraud do occur, but there is no credible evidence of the kind of widespread, systemic fraud that could meaningfully sway election outcomes. The "problem" that exists is less about the fraud itself and more about the gap between documented reality and public perception — a gap that has been fueled in part by unsubstantiated political claims.