Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Short answer: It happens, but at an extremely low, isolated rate — not the widespread, systemic problem some claim.

What the research shows

Decades of academic and nonpartisan research have consistently found voter fraud to be exceedingly rare. The incidence of voter fraud has been studied numerous times, and the consensus from credible research and investigation is that the rate of illegal voting is extremely rare, with certain types of fraud – such as impersonating another voter – virtually nonexistent.

Some landmark findings:

Even conservative sources find low numbers

Notably, even the right-leaning Heritage Foundation's own database — often cited by those warning about fraud — shows very small numbers relative to total votes cast: Heritage's "Election Fraud Database" found 1,561 instances of voter fraud resulting in 1,325 convictions across decades, with just 20 cases brought in 2024. In Pennsylvania specifically, Heritage's own data covering 30 years and 32 elections identified just 39 cases of voter fraud — about 0.000039 percent of the more than 100 million ballots cast.

Mail-in voting

Mail voting, frequently singled out as a fraud risk, also shows minuscule fraud rates: analysis found an average total mail voting fraud percentage across the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 general elections of only 0.000043%, or about four cases of mail voting fraud out of every 10 million mail votes.

2024 election specifically

Looking at the most recent presidential cycle: available reporting shows very few criminal prosecutions for voter fraud tied directly to the 2024 election, with multiple investigations yielding small numbers of indictments or convictions and many inquiries finding no charges — the most consistent datapoints are single-digit to low-double-digit prosecutions in specific jurisdictions. There's an important distinction between referrals/investigations and actual prosecutions: in Wisconsin, for example, clerks referred 46 suspected fraud/irregularity instances to prosecutors after the 2024 presidential contest — a "tiny fraction" of the more than 3.4 million ballots cast there. Nevada saw more than 300 reports of potential double voting tied to the 2024 general election, with 133 cases remaining open as of March 2025 — again, referrals aren't the same as proven fraud.

What most "fraud" actually turns out to be

Most allegations of voter fraud turned out to be related to clerical errors, poor data-matching practices, and voter error rather than intentional criminal activity. One notable exception where systemic illegal voting did occur: between June 2023 and June 2024, a software error at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission caused around 6,600 noncitizens to wrongly be registered to vote, and almost 400 of them went on to illegally cast ballots — though this stemmed from a bureaucratic error, not a coordinated fraud scheme.

Bottom line

Voter fraud does occur in isolated instances, and election officials and prosecutors do pursue real cases each cycle. But by every rigorous measure — whether from nonpartisan academics, government audits, or even conservative advocacy groups' own databases — it occurs at rates far too low to meaningfully affect election outcomes, and is nowhere close to the "widespread" or "rampant" fraud sometimes described in political rhetoric.