Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Is US voter fraud a widespread issue? I'll search the evidence to give you a clear answer.

In the U.S. voter fraud exists but research consistently finds it extremely rare relative to total votes cast, and not at a scale that has altered modern federal election outcomes.

What research shows about frequency

> “Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a scale that would affect an election outcome”

> “Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a scale that would affect an election outcome,” said Alice Clapman, senior counsel for voting rights at the Brennan Center for Justice

Multiple independent analyses put proven incidence at tiny fractions of a percent:

•A well-known Brennan Center analysis estimated fraud rates between roughly 0.0003% and 0.0025% based on decades of data

•A 20-year MIT study concluded mail-in ballot fraud occurred at roughly 0.00006 percent of votes

•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

•Scholars and nonpartisan researchers who have compiled proven cases across decades conclude that instances of voter fraud are extremely uncommon relative to the hundreds of millions of ballots cast

Other reviews describe similar magnitudes:

•When asked for a single, determined percentage, the best reporting-supported answer is that documented voter fraud rates fall far below one hundredth of a percent

•There is no evidence for widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, including in recent national elections

How many proven cases?

The most-cited public compilation is the Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud Database, a conservative think tank database:

•It lists roughly 1,561 “proven instances” yielding about 1,325 convictions across its time window

•The Heritage Foundation has catalogued approximately 1,500 proven cases spanning multiple decades

•The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database records approximately 1,500 proven cases across the United States between 1982 and 2023 — an average of roughly 40 cases per year in a nation where 158 million ballots were cast in 2020 alone

Analysis of that database illustrates rarity:

•In Arizona, Heritage had to search 25 years across 36 elections and over 42 million ballots to find 36 cases of fraud—a rate of 0.0000845 percent

Other tallies:

•The Justice Department’s own aggressive fraud-hunting initiative from 2002 to 2007 produced about 120 charges and 86 convictions across five years, nationwide

•The Associated Press contacted local election officials in six swing states and found 475 potential voter fraud cases — which amounts to an extraordinarily small percentage of the more than 25 million ballots that were cast in those six states

•In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced his office had found 75 voters who allegedly cast a ballot in the state and another state in 2020. Almost 6 million ballots were cast in Ohio that year

What proven fraud looks like

When scholars and watchdogs tally proven cases they typically find fraud that is individual or small-scale: falsified voter registration forms, people casting ballots in more than one jurisdiction, absentee-ballot mishandling or forgery, and isolated instances of vote buying or coercion

Federal election offenses include giving false information when registering, voting when ineligible, voting more than once or using someone else's name, and election officials changing a ballot tally.

In-person impersonation - the type fraud that voter-ID laws target - is described as the rarest of all: In-person impersonation which is the one kind of fraud that voter-ID laws actually target, is the rarest of all

Why perception differs from data

Polling shows many Americans are concerned about fraud, but investigators often find dramatic claims yield very small numbers of prosecutions:

> “We do oftentimes see dramatic claims by state officials about voter fraud,” ... “But what we've seen over the years is that investigations, for example, in Kansas and Colorado, Maine, Florida, across the political spectrum have yielded very, very small instances of actual prosecutions.”

Courts and commissions have reached similar conclusions:

> “And the answer has overwhelmingly been throughout the years that this is extremely rare,” ... “Oftentimes courts, once they look at specific evidence, conclude that the evidence just isn't there.”

Researchers also note many referrals involve mistakes rather than intentional fraud, such as people who voted “accidentally in good faith, believing that they were eligible”, often involving people who lost voting rights due to a felony conviction.

Safeguards

States have systems designed to prevent and detect ineligible voting:

> “States have very effective protections in place to prevent and detect voter fraud,”

These include requirements to routinely remove ineligible or deceased voters, tools like the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to share data, and protections like signature matching, drop box surveillance, and poll worker training.

Bottom line

•Empirical evidence across decades and multiple methodologies leads to one clear conclusion: proven voter fraud is extremely rare relative to the number of votes cast — measured in orders of magnitude of 0.0000X percent

•Isolated cases do occur and can occasionally affect small local races, and penalties for fraud are described as enormous, but no rigorous body of research has shown fraud at the scale necessary to flip major U.S. presidential elections.

Debate continues over policy responses: supporters of stricter ID and registration checks argue any fraud should be prevented even if rare, while voting-rights advocates argue that restrictive measures based on rare fraud can disproportionately affect eligible voters without measurable security benefit.

Citations (1)

1wuot.orgNot yet classified
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Backs: “voter fraud exists but research consistently finds it extremely rare relative to total votes cast, and not at a scale that has altered modern federal election outcomes. What research shows about frequency. “Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a…”