The percentage of votes cast fraudulently in U.S. elections is extraordinarily small. Reviews of carefully examined elections by the Brennan Center for Justice put the rate between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent, and a U.S. Department of Justice unit that investigated the 2002 and 2004 federal elections concluded that just 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast were fraudulent.1Brennan Center for Justice. Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth The Center for Election Innovation and Research summarized decades of data this way: a search of billions of ballots cast over 40 years turned up roughly 1,000 individual examples of fraud, “not zero, but very close to zero.”2Center for Election Innovation & Research. How Common Is Voter Fraud?
A Brookings Institution analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s own election fraud database found 36 cases of fraud in Arizona across 25 years and more than 42 million ballots, a rate of 0.0000845 percent. Pennsylvania had 39 cases over 30 years spanning more than 100 million votes.3Brookings Institution. How Widespread Is Election Fraud in the United States? Not Very After the 2020 presidential election, an Associated Press count across the six battleground states disputed by Donald Trump found fewer than 475 problematic votes total, less than two-tenths of one percent of Joe Biden’s margin of victory in those states, with no evidence of coordinated activity.2Center for Election Innovation & Research. How Common Is Voter Fraud?
The Heritage Foundation itself, which maintains the most-cited database of documented cases, listed 1,620 proven instances as of December 2025, spanning decades of elections nationwide. Of those, 1,382 resulted in criminal convictions and 138 in diversion programs.4Heritage Foundation. Election Fraud Cases – Categories The Brennan Center assessed those entries as representing a “molecular fraction” of total votes cast and noted that only a handful involved non-citizen voting or in-person impersonation.5Brennan Center for Justice. Heritage Fraud Database Assessment
Rates by Type of Fraud
In-Person Impersonation
This is the form of fraud voter ID laws are designed to stop, and it is the rarest category documented. A 2014 investigation found 31 credible instances of impersonation out of more than one billion ballots cast between 2000 and 2014. Arizona State University researchers examining 2000 through 2012 identified 10 cases nationwide, and a follow-up covering 2012 through 2016 found zero successful prosecutions for impersonation in the five states examined.1Brennan Center for Justice. Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
Mail-In and Absentee Ballots
A Brookings analysis of general elections in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 measured mail voting fraud at an average rate of 0.000043 percent, roughly four cases for every 10 million mailed ballots.6Brookings Institution. Mail Voting in the U.S.: Data Points to Very Low Fraud and Significant Benefits to Voters Oregon, which has used universal vote-by-mail since 2000, has documented only about a dozen fraud cases after sending out more than 100 million ballots, a rate of 0.00001 percent.7Brennan Center for Justice. The False Narrative of Vote-by-Mail Fraud A 2021 peer-reviewed study in Statistics and Public Policy found “no evidence that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud overall,” and estimated that Washington state would have seen about 73 more fraud cases between 2011 and 2019 without universal vote-by-mail.8Taylor & Francis Online. Does Voting by Mail Increase Fraud?
Double Voting
A peer-reviewed study in the American Political Science Review estimated that in the 2012 presidential election roughly one in 4,000 voters may have cast two ballots, though the authors noted the true rate was likely lower because small errors in electronic records can mimic duplicates. The same study found that removing registrations based on name and birthdate matches could block about 300 legitimate votes for every double vote prevented.9Cambridge University Press. One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections The National Conference of State Legislatures notes that detecting double voting across state lines is difficult and that data-matching efforts often inflate the number of apparent duplicates.10NCSL. Double Voting
Non-Citizen Voting
The Heritage Foundation database identified 23 instances of non-citizen voting between 2003 and 2022.11Migration Policy Institute. Noncitizen Voting in U.S. Elections A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of the same database found 77 instances of non-citizens casting ballots over 24 years from 1999 to 2023.12Bipartisan Policy Center. Four Things to Know About Noncitizen Voting A Brennan Center survey of 42 election jurisdictions covering 23.5 million votes in 2016 found suspected non-citizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the total, with 40 of the 42 jurisdictions reporting zero known incidents.
State investigations have followed a consistent pattern: large initial flags shrink dramatically under scrutiny. Georgia’s October 2024 audit of 8.2 million registered voters identified 20 registered non-citizens, of whom nine had voted in prior elections, mostly before the state implemented enhanced verification in 2012. Utah reviewed over two million registered voters between April 2025 and January 2026 and found one confirmed non-citizen registration and zero instances of non-citizen voting.12Bipartisan Policy Center. Four Things to Know About Noncitizen Voting A Florida investigation into 182,000 alleged non-citizen registrants resulted in 85 confirmed cases and one conviction, out of 12 million registered voters.1Brennan Center for Justice. Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
A 2014 study by Jesse Richman and David Earnest of Old Dominion University, published in Electoral Studies, claimed 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and became a widely cited source for claims of millions of illegal votes. Academic critics said the methodology relied on a small number of survey respondents who may have incorrectly identified themselves as non-citizens. Richman later conceded the study “probably overstated” non-citizen voting and that his data did not support claims of millions of fraudulent votes.13The New York Times. Illegal Voting Claims, and Why They Don’t Hold Up14Wired. The Author of Trump’s Favorite Voter Fraud Study Says Everyone’s Wrong
Penalties and How Prosecutions Actually Play Out
Federal law imposes penalties of up to five years in prison and fines for knowingly submitting false voter registration applications, casting fraudulent ballots, or intimidating voters in federal elections.15Cornell Law Institute. 52 U.S. Code § 20511 Non-citizens who vote illegally face deportation and denial of future immigration benefits.12Bipartisan Policy Center. Four Things to Know About Noncitizen Voting States set their own penalties, which vary widely.
Prosecutions are rare and inconsistent in outcome. A New York Times survey of roughly 400 voter fraud prosecutions over a five-year period found wide disparities, with some defendants receiving significant jail time and others diverted into civics classes.16The New York Times. Voter Fraud Penalties In one recent federal case, Denis Bouchard, a 70-year-old Canadian citizen who had falsely claimed U.S. citizenship and voted in nine federal elections between 2004 and 2024, was sentenced to two months in federal prison and one year of supervised release.17U.S. Department of Justice. Alien Sent to Prison for Illegally Voting in North Carolina Elections
Florida’s high-profile 2022 enforcement push shows how often the headline numbers do not translate into convictions. Governor Ron DeSantis announced the arrest of 20 individuals accused of voting illegally as convicted felons. Many defendants had received voter registration cards from the state and understood that as authorization to vote, and courts found that the statewide prosecutor lacked jurisdiction because the alleged offenses occurred within single counties.18Sun-Sentinel. Florida Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Voter Fraud Case By mid-2025, only one defendant, Nathan Hart, had been found guilty by a jury, on a false-swearing count. He was acquitted of the voting charge itself and was appealing. Nine others accepted plea deals or received probation, community service, or small fines. One defendant had died, and at least one case had been fully dismissed by an appeals court.19Florida Politics. Gov. DeSantis’ Election Police Arrested 19 Felons for Voting – Where Are They Now?
What Courts Found After the 2020 Election
The 2020 presidential election produced the largest wave of voter fraud litigation in modern American history. Donald Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits across battleground states. Courts uniformly rejected the claims.
In Arizona, a court found the ballot duplication process was 99.45 percent accurate, with discrepancies attributable to human error rather than fraud.20Campaign Legal Center. Results of Lawsuits Regarding 2020 Elections A Michigan judge called allegations “speculative” and based on “guess-work.” In Nevada, a court ruled that plaintiffs failed to provide “credible and relevant evidence to substantiate any” of their claims, and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a request to discard over 22,000 ballots, calling it “meritless on its face.”21State Court Report. What Litigation After the 2020 Election Can Tell Us About 2024 In August 2021, a federal judge in Michigan sanctioned Sidney Powell and eight other pro-Trump lawyers for filing a lawsuit based on “false information” and recommended state bar investigations.
The Gap Between the Rate and the Perception
The measured rate of voter fraud and public concern about it have drifted sharply apart, and the gap runs along partisan lines. A March 2026 PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found that one-third of Americans identify voter fraud as the single biggest threat to election safety. Among Republicans, 57 percent held that view; Democrats were far more likely to name voter suppression as the top concern (41 percent).22PBS NewsHour. Americans Are Increasingly Worried About Voting, New Poll Shows Before the 2024 election, an NPR/PBS poll found 88 percent of Trump supporters were concerned about voter fraud, compared to 29 percent of Harris supporters.23NPR Illinois. Driven by Republicans, Most Americans Are Concerned About Fraud in the 2024 Election
The 2008 Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board captured the tension directly. The Court upheld Indiana’s photo ID law, finding states have a “reasonable interest in preventing election fraud,” while acknowledging that the record contained “no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history.”24Justia. Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181 Research has since found that racial minorities are significantly more likely than white Americans to lack accepted forms of voter ID.25Brennan Center for Justice. Voter Suppression
Federal Action Built on Fraud Concerns
Voter fraud concerns have driven a wave of recent federal and state action, much of which is now in court. As of October 2025, 16 states had enacted 29 restrictive voting laws during that year’s sessions, nearly matching the 2021 pace. Indiana eliminated student IDs, West Virginia moved to photo-only ID, and Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment enshrining a photo ID requirement.26Brennan Center for Justice. State Voting Laws Roundup: October 2025 As of mid-2025, 36 states require voters to show some form of identification at the polls.27NCSL. Voter ID
At the federal level, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require citizenship documentation to register, passed the House in 2025 but stalled in the Senate.28League of Women Voters. SAVE Act President Trump issued executive orders in March 2025 and March 2026 directing agencies to verify voter eligibility and regulate mail-in ballots.29The White House. Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections Federal courts have blocked most of the 2025 order’s provisions. In October 2025, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. permanently struck down the citizenship documentation requirement, ruling the president lacked authority to dictate the content of federal voter registration forms.30The U.S. Constitution – Constitutional Accountability Center. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Executive Office of the President Courts also blocked provisions withholding funding from non-compliant states and rescinding voting machine certifications.31Brennan Center for Justice. Status of Trump’s 2025 Anti-Voting Executive Order
The Department of Justice has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C. to compel unredacted statewide voter registration lists, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license data. As of April 2026, federal courts had dismissed the lawsuits in six states — Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island — with the DOJ appealing several rulings.32NCSL. Federal Requests for Statewide Voter Lists Only about 10 states have provided or indicated they intend to provide the data.33State Democracy Research Initiative – University of Wisconsin Law School. Can the Federal Government Force States to Hand Over Citizens’ Voter Information
The administration updated the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to run bulk citizenship checks against voter files. DHS processed 49.5 million voter files and flagged roughly 10,000 registrants as potential non-citizens, a 0.02 percent flag rate. The system has produced significant errors. In Missouri’s Boone County, over half the voters flagged were confirmed U.S. citizens. In St. Louis County, roughly 35 percent of those flagged were naturalized citizens. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledged providing incorrect information to at least five states.34Brennan Center for Justice. Watch Out for False Voter Fraud Claims Fueled by SAVE Program Court filings revealed that Social Security Administration employees associated with the Department of Government Efficiency improperly accessed and shared sensitive data to match Social Security records against voter rolls, leading to Hatch Act referrals for two employees.35NPR. DOGE Data, Social Security, and Privacy
The pattern across those enforcement efforts tracks the underlying statistics: large flags, small confirmed numbers, and a percentage of actual fraud that remains in the thousandths or ten-thousandths of a percent.