How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Most Americans are concerned about voter fraud in this year’s general election.
That’s according to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll . Much of this concern is driven by Republicans after years of former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies casting doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. elections.
But voter fraud remains a very rare occurrence across the country.
“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, which advocates for expanded voter access.
And it’s not just research. Clapman said courts have also looked at this issue, as well as government commissions and prosecutorial offices.
“And the answer has overwhelmingly been throughout the years that this is extremely rare,” Clapman said. “Oftentimes courts, once they look at specific evidence, conclude that the evidence just isn't there.”
Voter fraud charges happen, but at a very small scale
Following Trump’s false claims, leaders in Republican-run states have been ramping up investigations into alleged voter fraud. Despite the increased efforts, the number of potential instances of fraud they are actually finding amounts to a tiny fraction of the number of ballots cast in a state’s election.
In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced in 2022 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.
In a statement, LaRose’s office said they had referred a total of 630 cases to prosecutors “over the course of multiple elections” — while also noting “voter fraud continues to be exceedingly rare” in the state.
Also after the 2020 election, 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.
Overall, Clapman said, there is a big gap between “the rhetoric and the actual reality” of how many instances of voter fraud some state officials identify and refer for prosecution.
“We do oftentimes see dramatic claims by state officials about voter fraud,” she said. “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.”
Voter fraud vs. voting mistakes
And even when cases do make it to court, they are sometimes thrown out or face a difficult path through the legal system. This often happens, Clapman said, in cases that involve ineligible voters who voted “accidentally in good faith, believing that they were eligible.”
Clapman said a lot of these cases involve people who at one point lost their voting rights due to a felony conviction. Some examples are from Florida , where 20 formerly incarcerated people were arrested for alleged illegal voting, even though they were given voter registration cards; as well as a prominent case in Texas involving a woman named Crystal Mason who said she thought she was eligible to vote in 2016.
Clapman said conservative-leaning groups often lump all cases where the voter thought they were eligible along with cases where someone intended to commit fraud.
“These numbers don't distinguish between, you know, an allegation that may be incorrect or a situation where someone has voted in good faith incorrectly,” she said.
States have systems to prevent someone from voting illegally
Lastly, states have a series of mechanisms to help weed out people who are ineligible to vote before they could cast a ballot.
States, by law, are required to routinely remove ineligible or deceased voters from their rolls. And there are tools like the Electronic Registration Information Center , also known as ERIC, that help states share voter data.
Depending on the type of voting — in-person vs. mail-in — there are also a host of protections that would keep someone from casting a ballot that isn’t theirs, or from voting altogether if they are ineligible. That includes things like signature matching, drop box surveillance, as well as poll worker training.
“States have very effective protections in place to prevent and detect voter fraud,” Clapman said. “And then it is always important to be reminded that the penalty for voter fraud is enormous.”
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"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
Carl Sagan
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Quoting someone does not imply a personal experience, however, feel free to make it about yourself ... the seed has no rules.
Democrats are ALWAYS fighting voter I D Laws and Proof of Citizenship to vote, WHY??????????????
Ask them, I'm a Canadian Libertarian Monarchist.
" Voter ID laws have long been debated in the United States. While supporters argue that voter photo ID laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and ensure the integrity of elections, reality tells a different story. Not only do these measures disproportionately impact Black, Native, elderly, and student voters, but they also fail to effectively address any real issues related to election integrity — the very thing advocates say these measures are designed to do."
According to the Brennan Center , the rate of in-person voter impersonation is extremely low: only 0.00004% of all ballots cast. It’s worth noting that this rate is even significantly lower than other rare forms of voter fraud, such as absentee ballot fraud, which voter photo ID laws do not address.
Not only are voter photo ID laws ineffective as means of combating voter fraud, but their main impact is that they promote voter suppression.
The use of restrictive voting laws to disenfranchise minority voters can be traced back to the Jim Crow era, when many states employed various tactics — including literacy tests, poll taxes, and extralegal measures such as violence and intimidation — to prevent Black Americans from voting. Following the enactment of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965, many of these tactics were outlawed, but efforts to restrict voting access persisted, including implementing voter ID laws.
The negative impact of strict voter ID laws is not limited to Black Americans; other marginalized populations also face disproportionate barriers to voting because of these laws. Native American communities, low-income, elderly, and rural voters are disproportionately affected by voter photo ID laws. This is partially because photo IDs aren’t as common as many people assume: 18% of all citizens over the age of 65, 16% of Latino voters, 25% of Black voters, and 15% of low-income Americans lack acceptable photo ID ."
Aside from class and racial discrimination, there are other peculiar ways voter photo ID laws turn voters away from the polls. For example, people who change their last names after marriage or divorce and don’t have a permissible ID that reflects their name on the voter rolls may be unable to cast a ballot. College students are also uniquely impacted by these laws, as their primary form of ID can often be a student ID, which isn’t always accepted as a valid form for voting. In all these cases, voter ID laws deny eligible voters access to the ballot box.
What's So Bad About Voter ID Laws? | League of Women Voters (lwv.org)
So to answer your question, Democrats fight against voter ID laws because:
1. THEY'RE UNNECCESARY. The fraud being imagined ISN'T FUCKING HAPPENING!
2. Because the people that are prevented from voting are often women who have had name changes due to marriage, young, low income and minority voters who Republicans KNOW often vote Democrat which is why they push their voter ID laws, not to stop any fraud but to put as many roadblocks in the way of female, young and minority voters as possible.
Hope that answers your question. And if you try to claim, again, without evidence, that they are to prevent fraud, SHOW THE FUCKING PROOF! Otherwise, one can only assume you just don't want women, young college students and minorities voting.
Why do you think women and minorities are too stupid to get ID’s?
I don't. Only rightwing conservatives desperate to hide their true agenda of disenfranchising eligible voters make such disgusting claims. The facts show that it has nothing to do with intelligence but has everything to do with the additional difficulties women and students and minorities often have when trying to get or change their driver licenses. Sometimes is simply a matter of money, some having unpaid parking tickets that prevent them from renewing their licenses or a long list of paperwork necessary to change a last name to match their voter registration.
The facts are clear, and by your refusal to address the facts and just make a snide attempt at deflection it's clear you don't actually care about voter fraud, you apparently just want to support the attempts at disenfranchising eligible voters.
When I go to a polling place, it's usually being operated by some eager volunteers from the community - often retired seniors with nothing else to do that day. Their duties involve having voters sign the register, handing out ballots, collecting them, and giving away "I voted" stickers. This is the kind of thing that a well-trained monkey could do.
On the other hand, some people imagine that these lay people somehow have the expertise to analyze government documents like state issued ID or "proof of citizenship" whatever the hell that is. I'm a citizen, but I'm not sure how I'd prove it. And please don't suggest birth certificate because we all know Trump and his minions don't trust birth certificates.
So I don't see how requiring documentation at the polling place is going to help anything there. The people working there are not qualified to evaluate it.
You just said that ID’s would prevent them from voting so you obviously feel there is a reason for that. Why do you feel that way?
BRAVO!!! I'm still a Canadian, but no longer a monarchist since that miserable piece of shit and his horseface wife who cheated on Princess Diana took the throne.
Since voter fraud is very rare. why this nonsense? To me ,being a minority, it sounds like you are trying to disfranchise voters something that we have a lot of experience with, why don't you righties stop trying to limit our ability to vote?
What's So Bad About Voter ID Laws? | League of Women Voters (lwv.org)
"So to answer your question, Democrats fight against voter ID laws because:
1. THEY'RE UNNECCESARY. The fraud being imagined ISN'T FUCKING HAPPENING!
2. Because the people that are prevented from voting are often women who have had name changes due to marriage, young, low income and minority voters who Republicans KNOW often vote Democrat which is why they push their voter ID laws, not to stop any fraud but to put as many roadblocks in the way of female, young and minority voters as possible.
Hope that answers your question. And if you try to claim, again, without evidence, that they are to prevent fraud, SHOW THE FUCKING PROOF! Otherwise, one can only assume you just don't want women, young college students and minorities voting."
Just like the bill they want to pass regarding pretty much the same thing - something that 'isn't fucking happening!' -
- regarding non-citizens voting in elections.
I never liked Camilla. lol
Everyone loved Diana, she was known as The People's Princess. I didn't want to wash my hand after Diana shook it and carried on a short conversation with me.
Seems that anybody who claims massive voter fraud in order to deny reality and create doubt in the election process should be subjected to, at the very least, the same penalty as a person who intentionally commits voter fraud.
In order to get most photo ID at the local level you have to prove your citizenship.
Why do Republicans ALWAYS propose new laws to re-establish that which is already known by the states.
It's already illegal for non citizens to vote in federal elections but it seems like every four years Republicans press Democrats to pass duplicate legislation on the premise of patriotism. It sounds more like fascism.
14 Republicans voted against the stop gap funding bill in part because it was paired with an unrelated voting bill that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote ( already in place ) and require states to purge non-citizens from their registration lists (already state laws).
At least after case 20 or so being thrown out by the courts.
from the article:
“But voter fraud remains a very rare occurrence across the country.”
That so many have an unfounded concern is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the trump legacy. Bottom line, the process works. But if any doubt lingers, become a poll worker or a poll watcher…it will allay any doubt, as long as one is sincere in their desire to ascertain the facts.
I wish someone could explain to us the nature and the mechanics of the so called stolen election in 2020. How was it done? Who did it? How was it coordinated across states and regions? The throw the kitchen sink at it approach that they have used for four years is on the face of it preposterous.
So please, Trump supporters, tell us in the best detail that you can, how this allegedly happened.
Voter fraud is very hard to catch. Witness the hundred thousands or so votes Democrats created in the Illinois gubernatorial election a few decades ago. They absolutely would have gotten away with it again had one of the participants been given his promised city job. If the Democrats had simply given the guy a job, no one would have been the wiser.
Prior to all three of the elections Trump has run in, he has claimed that the only way he could lose is if it was stolen from him. He pulled the rationale for these claims out of his ass, and we all know it. No one has done as much to destroy Americans confidence in their system as this piece of human garbage.
“No one has done as much to destroy Americans confidence in their system…”
No doubt. No reason. No excuse.
You're talking about decades ago which has absolutely fucking nothing to do with now
Six decades ago.
"Democrats are ALWAYS fighting voter I D Laws and Proof of Citizenship to vote, WHY??????????????"
That question is frequently asked but the left appears to not be able to honestly answer it. Again.....WHY?
Democrats have been very creative over the decades to cheat the electoral process. Many liberal cites have made is easy for illegals to get driver's licenses which is the first step in registering to vote. Opening the border floodgates is not about compassion and caring for people seeking asylum and a better, but to increase potential voters for the democrats.
Sure, it's rare, but it happens, there is proof of that if one does even a little research. We have to stay vigilant.
Crazy how the cities the most corrupt cities always seem to have the best ballot return rate.
It is inappropriate to imagine good Michiganders as demons to exploit. If trumpists wish to look to corruption just look at how Crooked Donald is "banking" his followers in plain sight of onlookers.
“Sure, it's rare, but it happens, there is proof of that if one does even a little research. We have to stay vigilant.”
Indeed it is very rare, and given that, there is always an anecdotal case. In those cases, the administrators charged with keeping the integrity of their work become more diligent to prevent further incidents.
Be vigilant, greg, in however that looks to you, but it’s important to keep it in perspective.
During the 2020 cycle it was mostly trump voters trying to vote twice in person. Maybe a dozen cases out of 150 million votes.
It increases potential voters equally. Southern Texas Hispanics are by and large Republicans and vote conservative.
What you are citing is propaganda.
White leftists believe blacks are unable to get IDs.
Black Americans shut that stupid ass argument down
Ami Horowitz: How white liberals really view black voters - YouTube
Ah, Mr. Horowitz ... I understand he's persona non grata in Sweden. Seems he uses some of the 'techniques' popularised by James O'Keefe.
Ah...simply attack the person that VIDEOED the little white leftists stating that blacks are unable to get IDs.
Simply shows the agenda that some on the left is striving to follow....and are being shown how wrong they are every day.
Or it shows the agenda folks such as O'Keefe and Horowitz are willing to make a buck from. You remind me of the mother pleading for her son's life: "Your Honor, I know my son killed 9 people but 14 deserved it."
Makes absolutely no sense.
Does not address the VIDEO of white liberals saying blacks cannot get ids because of their intelligence levels.
So that one video of some random white racist assholes is demonstrative of white liberals how???????????????
I doubt that was even random. Probably paid those random people to say stupid racist shit.
That proves they're 'little white leftists'?
How stupid.
What a pathetic and laughable attempt to smear 'little white leftists'.
lol
That's actually how the gop and republicons view black folks.
The ‘little white’ racists are on video saying balcks are too stupid to get ids.
Too bad you fail to see that
‘So that one video of some random white racist assholes is demonstrative of white liberals how???????????????’
Obviously you didn’t watch the vide to come up with such an uninformed post. Not surprised.
There were about a dozen white liberals who all said the same thing but if you watched the video you would have seen that.
Videos have editors and folks like Horowitz and O'Toole are infamous for using them.
OK so how do you think the video was edited?
One thing I can assure you is CBS did not record it.
I stopped counting after 50 of them.
Didn't answer the question.
What did the liberals say that was edited to make it look like they said something else?
It's not necessary to address that which is not the topic.
You didn't like the answer, that's your problem.
Seeder responded to 6.1.11 so that makes it on topic
Some white leftists and some white conservatives believe some blacks are unable to get IDs. ( Fixed it for you )
It's not an urban problem in NYC.
I believe you would get a different video result if the interviews were in urban Georgia or South Carolina
where I lived off base for 5 years. Especially in SC where many Gullah have never left the barrier islands.
That is true but it is well known that it is normally liberals that complain blacks are unable to get IDs and voter id is racist, but the black Americans in the video squash that argument.
If liberals want to complain about blacks having difficulty, then they should specify where in the country this difficulty is and prove that blacks really do have difficulty getting them there. No voter ID law is racist.
People can lose their identification and whole lifetimes of their background paperwork in fires, storms, divorces or numerous other unforseen and unimaginable circumstances. I takes time and money to reaccumulate everything again . My ancient mother had to hire an attorney and go before a state judge to get a birth certificate now required to vote because she was born at home on the family farm and never had a birth certificate. She had managed to get by until a few years ago with her Oklahoma driver's license, US passport, marriage certificate, college degrees, teaching certification, military officer's wife identification and, believe it or not, her Oklahoma Voter ID. The local judge who has known her for fifty years accepted those things and the birth certificates of her children to grant her a provisional birth certificate to vote in Oklahoma under new requirements...
The problem is many liberals say that voter ID is racist. How is that when you have never heard a black person claim racism when getting an ID?
See above. My Mom is upper class white retired educator with the ability, connections and resources to get required identification. A poor old black person born in Alabama probably would not...
They lived in, went to school in, worked in, drove in and even voted in their rural backwaters all their lives without any birth certificates. You have no idea who is being disenfranchised. Rest assured the poor and the already disenfranchised suffer disproportionately.
No it isn't. Open minded people complain that there are many obstacles to MINORITIES getting every thing they need to be able to vote.
Why are you hung up on black issues? They are only 14.4% of the population and most live in suburban areas where this is not an issue. White people constitute 57.3% of the nation, leaving 42.7% as MINORITIES.
Then they will, they don't need your permission or to follow your instructions.
Your video is an outlier and exaggerates the differences between young white teenagers world view and the local world view of black adults in NYC. It was made for people who share your world view apparently.
Never said they were. There is a legal difference between racist and discriminatory.
If white liberals claim that voter ID is racist towards blacks, but whites also were born in rural areas of the country without birth certificates, would voter ID also be racist towards those white people?
Voter ID is racist when: Right-wing leaders look into the specifics of a section of the nation in order to discover what they do not have in their possession and turn that absent set of features and documents into a weapon or set of weapons to use against their fellow voting public!
So yes, blacks have IDs who can afford them, however there are minorities and even Whites in the majority which do not have IDs and the larger statement becomes this: The rules for voting should be set ONCE and for ALL and not undergo 'recalibration' on the whim of one party in leadership seeking its own indulgences in voting outcomes!
I think I will ask you the same
Is voter ID racist when it is traditionally white liberals who say voter ID is racist, but some whites in rural areas do not have a birth certificate to get an ID?
Why should a person who has lived in, worked in, drove in and voted in a rural county for all their life be required to prove citizenship again with one particular document that was not required before?
You should at least have an ID to register to vote.
Voter IDs have been required in most states for decades. Very few people alive today were born in a place where there was no BC issued. Your argument becomes less and less relevant every day.
Voter ID is racist when it affects people racially . Now, to 'craft' a question which asks if White liberals are accusing other whites of treating rural whites without birth certificates, or other identifying forms of "ID," is not the point! People can be racially-biased ("turned off by) against other people in their same grouping for personal and private reasons. (A separate discussion for another day).
* See the "Powell Memo." - 1971.
Hung up on black issues and 'the left'.
And yet, putting people through 'hoops' to RETREIVE a copy of birth documentation from an originating source causes takes for granted (by Right wing officials) that many people will not know where to begin the process (and consider it too much of a hassle when they do):
And yet some conservatives would have such people (among others) disenfranchised over a singular or other self-styled document inconvenient to possess. It hardly smacks of removing "impediments" to the franchise to ask for specific, SELECTIVE, (hard to possess/reach/locate) documents.
Let's call it what it is. Some conservatives are rapidly becoming a MINORITY in this country, therefore labor to remain RELEVANT and a FIXTURE of society by instituting conservative-minority rule. To that end, 'reimagining' ways to draw-down the numbers of voters who can vote for liberals is popular on the Right.
Although voter fraud is minimal, I'll bet it DID increase in the 2020 election. I'd be more concerned about voter intimidation and States doing what they can to restrict some people from voting, gerrymandering, etc.
Report: Trump commission did not find widespread voter fraud
In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said the documents show there was a “pre-ordained outcome” and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was “glaringly empty.”
“It’s calling into the darkness, looking for voter fraud,” Dunlap, a Democrat, told The Associated Press. “There’s no real evidence of it anywhere.”
Republican President Donald Trump convened the commission to investigate the 2016 presidential election after making unsubstantiated claims that between 3 million and 5 million ballots were illegally cast. Critics, including Dunlap, reject his claims of widespread voter fraud.
The Trump administration last month complied with a court order to turn over documents from the voting integrity commission to Dunlap. The commission met just twice and has not issued a report.
Dunlap’s findings received immediate pushback Friday from Kobach, who acted as vice chair of the commission while Pence served as chair.
“For some people, no matter how many cases of voter fraud you show them, there will never be enough for them to admit that there’s a problem,” said Kobach, who is running for Kansas governor and has a good chance of unseating the incumbent, Jeff Colyer, in the Republican primary Tuesday.
“It appears that Secretary Dunlap is willfully blind to the voter fraud in front of his nose,” Kobach said in a statement released by his spokesman.
Kobach said there have been more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000, and that the commission presented 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states.
“Had the commission done the same analysis of all 50 states, the number would have been exponentially higher,” Kobach said.
In response, Dunlap said those figures were never brought before the commission, and that Kobach hasn’t presented any evidence for his claims of double voting. He said the commission was presented with a report claiming over 1,000 convictions for various forms of voter misconduct since 1948.
“The plural of anecdote is not data,” Dunlap said in his Friday letter to the shuttered commission’s leaders.
Pence’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Dunlap said he is unsure whether the administration has released all relevant documents, and said the matter is in litigation. He said he was repeatedly rebuffed when he sought access to commission records including meeting materials, witness invitations and correspondence.
Dunlap released his findings on a website .
Emails released by Dunlap and promoted by the nonprofit American Oversight, which represented Dunlap, include examples of Republican voting integrity commissioners emailing each other as they worked on information requests without including Democrats.
“Indeed, a very few commissioners worked to buttress their pre-ordained conclusions shielded from dissent or dialogue from those commissioners not included in the discussions,” Dunlap said in his Friday letter.
In a June 2017 email, commissioner Christy McCormick unsuccessfully tried to suggest that the commission hire a statistician she knew. “When I was at DOJ, we had numerous discussions that made me pretty confident that he is conservative (and Christian, too),” said McCormick, in reference to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The emails also show some commission members had planned to ask for an interstate database used to identify duplicate voter registrations, as well as lists of individuals deemed ineligible for federal jury service due to death, relocation, convictions or lack of citizenship. It wasn’t clear in the emails whether or not such requests ended up being fulfilled, Dunlap said.
In two November 2017 emails, Republican commission member and election lawyer J. Christian Adams emailed all members and said there hadn’t been any prosecutions for double voting or any non-citizen voting in years. “Understanding the extent of un-prosecuted and known election crimes can inform the commission’s recommendations,” Adams said.
Adams also called for U.S. Customs and Immigration Services to obtain metadata from citizenship applications as well as a list of individuals removed from the U.S. due to their unlawful participation in elections.
“Many applicants note they have been registered to vote and are voting,” Adams said.
___
Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
The 2021 reactionary Texas election laws were tightened by Texas Republicans after Trump soundly won the state in 2016 and 2020.
A Texas judge overturned much of it Oct 11, 2024.
Texas is actually very lenient with acceptable Voter ID
They accept 7 forms of TX or Federal photo ID unexpired.
They accept the same, if expired by less than 4 years.
70 years old and older can have the same ID expired for any length of time.
or
The Election Identification Certificate is now available, and will be still be a form of acceptable photo ID. Information regarding how to obtain an election identification certificate can be found at www.dps.texas.gov. You may also contact DPS by telephone at (512) 424-2600 for more information.
Now the Silly rules.
Mail in ballot drop boxes are now illegal, even at the County Elections office under secure lock & key.
Mail in Ballots are exactly that, they can no longer be dropped off at a County election Office prior to election day.
Drive through Drop off and drive through voting have been eliminated for privacy issues and the legislatures "fears that other vehicles with political bumper stickers " may influence other drive through voters to change their votes.
Senate Bill 1750 eliminating the Harris County Elections Administrator, a role once shared by the County Tax accessor and the County Clerk which became too big for each as the population of Travis county exceeded 3.5.
Senate Bill 1750 only addresses Counties with a population exceeding 3.5 million on 09/01/2023 therefore violating the Texas Constitution which states that the state cannot enforce laws designed to punish one municipality.
The Travis County lawsuit seeking to delay the case until after the election was thrown out by the Texas Supreme Court of rodeo clowns..
Kobach is a grifter like Trump who just wont go away and is somehow making a living off of his pet issue.
Kris Kobach and the Search for the Mythical Voter Fraud - The Atlantic
Exactly, the last time it happened on a scale to tip the presidency was 1960.
maybe, maybe not.
Love that old standby 'Just because we could not prove it, doesn't mean it didn't happen the way we think it did'.