Is voter fraud a problem in the US?

Is Voter Fraud a Problem in the US?

The overwhelming consensus from academic research, government investigations, and nonpartisan analysis is that voter fraud is extremely rare in the United States and does not occur at a scale that affects election outcomes.

What the Research Shows

Multiple independent studies spanning decades reach the same conclusion. A Brennan Center report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. As one analysis famously put it, it is more likely that an American "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

A comprehensive review found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast, and even this tiny number is likely inflated, as the study's author counted not just prosecutions or convictions, but any and all credible claims.

Even the Heritage Foundation—a conservative think tank that maintains the most frequently cited database of fraud cases—shows how rare it is when examined closely. In Arizona, researchers had to go back 25 years, over which there were 36 elections held and 42,626,379 ballots cast, in order to come up with 36 cases of fraud... a minuscule .0000845%. In Pennsylvania, data goes back 30 years and covers 32 elections with over 100 million votes cast and found only 39 cases of voter fraud. Looking across a longer timeframe, a database search of billions of ballots cast over 40 years of US elections found roughly 1,000 individual examples of voter fraud.

2020 and 2024 Election Scrutiny

Despite intense partisan attention following the 2020 election, investigations found little. The Associated Press contacted local election officials in six swing states. In their analysis, they 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. Notably, the AP study also found no systematic collusion or "rigging" in those cases. Nearly every one was an individual acting alone.

Legal challenges to the 2020 result also failed to substantiate fraud claims: Donald Trump and his allies filed 62 lawsuits in various courts in an effort to challenge the election, many resting on claims of voter fraud. Of the 62 lawsuits, only one succeeded (and that ruling was later overturned).

Different Types of Fraud

Not all fraud categories are equally rare. Mail-in voter fraud occurs more often than in-person voter fraud, though quite rare, experts say it occurs more often than in-person voting. Brookings researchers 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.

Regarding noncitizen voting specifically, research is consistent: a 2014 paper concluded that "the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0." Recent state-level reviews of flagged "noncitizen" voters have repeatedly found the initial numbers were inflated—"even the largest claims represent tiny fractions of registered voters in any state," and "the numbers announced after a proper investigation are invariably far smaller than any numbers announced before review."

Current Context (2025-2026)

Despite the evidence, voter fraud claims continue to drive policy. In the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections, the Trump administration has repeatedly used claims of widespread voter fraud to justify an unprecedented shift toward federal control over elections, including limiting mail voting and requiring documentary proof of citizenship. The DOJ has also pursued recent cases, including 18 noncitizens indicted in North Carolina for illegally voting in 2024. However, a Washington Post review of such cases found that none of the indictments includes allegations of an organized effort by Democrats or anyone else to draw noncitizens to the polls, with many cases involving honest mistakes rather than intentional fraud.

Bottom Line

Voter fraud exists, but at a scale so small it has essentially no impact on election outcomes. As one Brookings researcher summarized: "There are a few cases of election fraud in every campaign. But it's not systemic. It's not widespread. It's generally not organized." The bigger ongoing debate is whether fraud-prevention measures (like stricter ID laws or mail-voting restrictions) do more to suppress legitimate voters than to stop fraud that researchers have already shown is vanishingly rare.