Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Voter fraud is a disputed question — I'll search recent studies and data to gauge how common it is in U.S. elections.

In the United States, voter fraud exists but is not considered widespread or frequent enough to affect overall election outcomes, according to most academic studies, election officials, and federal security agencies.

> Voter fraud is not a real problem in the United States and remains a very rare occurrence across the country.

What the research shows

Researchers have consistently found fraud rates at microscopic levels:

•“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.

•There is no evidence for widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, including in recent national elections, and research summaries find that rates of voter fraud are extremely low.

Specific estimates include:

•The Brennan Center’s review of meticulously studied elections found incident rates between roughly 0.0003% and 0.0025%, and in another analysis described as between 0.0003% and 0.0025% concluding a voter is more likely to be struck by lightning than to impersonate another voter at the polls. Other summaries of the same Brennan Center report cite rates between 0.0004 and 0.0009 percent, and between 0.00004% and 0.0009%.

•A Brennan Center examination covering 23.5 million votes found roughly 30 suspected incidents of noncitizen voting, about 0.0001 percent, with 40 of 42 jurisdictions reporting none at all.

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

What vote counts show

When compared to the number of ballots cast, proven cases are a tiny fraction:

•An Associated Press investigation contacted local election officials in six swing states after the 2020 election and found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud, 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 out of almost 6 million ballots cast, while his office also noted “voter fraud continues to be exceedingly rare”.

•More broadly, voter fraud charges happen, but at a very small scale.

The most-cited public compilation of proven fraud is the Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud Database:

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

•That total covers decades of elections — about 30-40 proven cases per year on average — and reporting using that dataset found only 20 new cases were brought in 2024 and the full database documents 1,561 instances yielding 1,325 convictions broadly across many years, but with 20 cases in 2024.

Even the Heritage Foundation, which has spent years collecting examples, demonstrates the scale problem: a 2026 congressional review of Heritage's database found 1,546 election fraud cases accumulated over decades, but only 68 involving noncitizen voting going back to the 1980s.

What federal officials say

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” with no evidence that voting systems deleted, lost or compromised votes.

CISA has consistently stated that it found no evidence of foreign interference that altered the outcomes of the 2020 or 2024 presidential elections, and that documented cases of non-citizen voting and mail-in ballot fraud are rare and insufficient to affect election results.

Georgia and Pennsylvania conducted audits of the 2024 general election and officials in both states confirmed the accuracy of election results.

Types of fraud and safeguards

Federal law prohibits various forms of election fraud, such as vote buying, multiple voting, submission of fraudulent ballots or registrations, destruction of ballots or registrations, voter intimidation, alteration of votes and malfeasance by election officials.

In-person impersonation — the kind of fraud that voter-ID laws actually target — is the rarest of all.

States have systems designed to prevent and detect fraud:

•Common safeguards include tamper-evident seals, certified voting equipment, chain-of-custody logs, bipartisan poll worker teams, and post-election audits comparing paper ballots to machine counts.

•States have very effective protections in place to prevent and detect voter fraud, and the penalty for voter fraud is enormous.

•Additional election integrity safeguards, including signature matching and verification of other personal data, protect against people casting ballots on behalf of others.

Why the perception differs from the data

Polling shows many Americans are concerned about voter fraud, with concern driven by political messaging, but investigators note there is a big gap between “the rhetoric and the actual reality” of how many instances officials identify and refer for prosecution.

Studies also note there is no evidence that voter ID laws cause a significant decrease in rates of voter fraud, or that voter ID laws increase voter confidence in elections.

Bottom line

•Documented fraud does occur — prosecutions and convictions are recorded every election cycle — but at rates measured in the hundred-thousandths to millionths of a percent of votes cast.

•No credible study, court review, or federal security review has found evidence of widespread, systematic fraud large enough to have altered a modern national election outcome.

Because safeguards, audits, and post-election reconciliation checks are designed to catch errors and fraud, experts generally describe voter fraud as a real but exceedingly rare problem, not a systemic one affecting U.S. elections at scale.

Citations (1)

1wuot.orgNot yet classified
How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
Backs: “Voter fraud is not a real problem in the United States and remains a very rare occurrence across the country. What the research shows. Researchers have consistently found fraud rates at microscopic levels: “Research has been consistent over time that voter fraud is infinitesimally rare and almost never occurs on a…”