Voter fraud claims persist. The numbers tell a different story

WASHINGTON —

The U.S. Supreme Court this week essentially blocked President Donald Trump’s push to restrict and remake how America votes by mail ahead of the November midterm elections.

Trump wanted the U.S. Postal Service to enforce a new rule requiring specialized ballot envelopes and the collection of sensitive voter information for mail ballots. The court declined to lift a lower court’s block on that rule, leaving it frozen with the midterms weeks away.

That means states can keep sending out ballots the same way they have for years — a method that has accounted for nearly a third of all votes cast. Trump has argued mail ballots are ripe for fraud.

The fight is the latest chapter in a debate that has followed American elections for years: claims of widespread voter fraud keep resurfacing, election after election. But is it reality, or myth?

Hearst Television’s National Investigative Unit set out to answer that question, building a database of proven fraud cases nationwide. Over a decade, the investigative team found a strikingly small fraction of confirmed cases compared to the hundreds of millions of votes cast, and an even smaller number of instances that involved mail-in ballots.

What Counts as Fraud

Voter fraud is defined as illegal interference with an election meant to change its outcome.

Claims that this kind of fraud is widespread have grown louder over the past decade. The evidence doesn’t back that up.

The Numbers

The National Investigative Unit built its database using public case trackers from sources including The Heritage Foundation, court records, and news reports. Since 2016, the team found 513 proven cases that led to criminal convictions or court actions — including overturned results or new elections ordered. That’s up 103 cases from the team’s last count in 2024.

Those 513 cases happened during a stretch when more than 685 million votes were cast across the country.

An International Perspective

Michael McNulty spent his career working on elections abroad — strengthening systems, monitoring races, and assessing risk. He’s now the Senior Policy Director for the nonprofit Issue One. He’s seen fraud up close in other countries.

“I’ve seen ballot box stuffing, multiple voting, coordinated efforts between election officials and voters to commit voter fraud at a scale that, combined with other forms of manipulation, could actually affect election results,” McNulty said. “So I’ve seen all these tactics, and when I look at the U.S., I see voter fraud is actually extremely rare.”

When the National Investigative Unit shared its data and analysis with McNulty, he called it valuable context. “It shows to me, again, coming from – looking at internationally and comparatively – it shows to me how strong our system is,” he said.

With 513 proven instances of fraud in a period with more than 685 million votes cast, McNulty said it reinforces voter fraud is a rarity.

“If you do the odds, it’s less than the odds of being struck by lightning for this to have happened,” he said.

No Sign of a Coordinated Effort

McNulty said proving a real systemic problem would require something specific: evidence of high-level coordination, proof that fraud was being organized on purpose, and a concentration of convictions in key states.

The data doesn’t show that. The 513 cases are scattered across many states and race types, with nothing pointing to a coordinated national scheme.

The National Investigative Unit analysis showed the top five states where proven fraud occurred since 2016 were Florida with nearly 12 percent of cases, North Carolina at nearly 11 percent, and California, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with seven, five, and four percent of the instances.

The overwhelming majority of individuals committing voter fraud – 85 percent – were U.S. citizens, and more than half of all instances were tied to a general election when the number of people heading to the polls is the largest.

Mail-in or absentee ballots could be definitively tied to nearly 40 percent of the identified fraud cases, about 202 in all – a small number given the votes cast, and there was no indication of a wider plot to change election outcomes.

Why It Matters

Of the 513 proven cases of voter fraud identified by the National Investigative Unit, only 15 led to an official ordering a new election or overturning the outcome. All but one of those instances were in local or statewide elections where the number of votes and result margins are much smaller.

McNulty warned that inflated claims of fraud carry their own cost — eroding public trust in a system that, by the numbers, is working.

“Voter fraud is not an issue in the United States,” he said. “Our states, our local officials, our county officials are doing an excellent job in keeping those numbers extremely low. And that’s a sign of the strength of our election system.”