The Facts About Voter Security:
I hope we can all agree that the opportunity for American citizens in a representative democracy to choose our leaders is an extraordinary privilege. It’s a fundamental right, and some would say responsibility, to vote. Understandably, we all want our vote to count. To that end, many policymakers over the nearly 250 years of our country’s history have revised and refined the voting process.
✅ Quick Election Facts
Fraud rate: 0.0003% – 0.0025% (Brennan Center)
Out of 1 billion ballots (2000–2014): only 31 credible fraud cases (Loyola Law study)
2020: “Most secure election in American history” – Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
In 6 battleground states, fewer than 475 suspicious ballots out of 25.5 million (AP review)
It’s disheartening that election integrity has been under attack in recent years by the Trump administration—and others before it—who stir up discontent and circulate false rumors about election fraud from no other motive than sour grapes. Instead of ensuring that all voters can safely cast votes, they legislate obstacles that make voting more difficult.
Even worse, the Republican party indicates that election results will only be accepted if they are favorable to Republicans. Ridiculous claims in 2020 of illegal ballots being dumped by the truckload at drop-off locations or hordes of dead people voting continue to circulate. Jewish space lasers? Seriously? The more bizarre the theory, the more some people cling to it, it seems.
Let’s be clear: America’s elections are remarkably secure, voter fraud is extraordinarily rare, and the safeguards used for mail voting work.
Over the past decade, multiple independent reviews have measured illegal voting and found minuscule rates. A widely cited Brennan Center synthesis of studies puts the incidence of voter fraud between 0.0003% and 0.0025%—so rare that an American is more likely to be struck by lightning than to impersonate a voter at the polls.
In a separate investigation, Loyola Law School’s Justin Levitt identified 31 plausible cases of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion ballots cast from 2000–2014 as reported in The Washington Post. These are not partisan talking points; they’re empirical findings that have withstood years of scrutiny.
When the 2020 election was falsely labeled “rigged,” government and journalistic reviews tested those claims. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and state/local election officials jointly declared the 2020 contest “the most secure in American history.”
The Associated Press examined every potential fraud case in the six most-contested swing states and found fewer than 475—nowhere near enough to change outcomes out of roughly 25.5 million ballots cast in those states. Even officials appointed by the White House at the time publicly affirmed those conclusions, as evidenced by testimony in 2020 by Chris Krebs (the CISA Director) before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the U.S. Senate.
Do proven cases exist? Yes—and that’s precisely the point: the few that happen are detectable and prosecuted, and they are vanishingly small. Consider two examples:
• North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District (2018). A political operative hired by the Republican candidate orchestrated an illegal absentee-ballot scheme. The state elections board unanimously ordered a new election, explicitly concluding that the contest had been “corrupted by fraud, improprieties, and irregularities.” This is one of the rare modern cases where wrongdoing was serious enough to void a federal race—proof that safeguards and oversight work when problems arise.
• Double-voting prosecutions in Florida’s The Villages (2020). Several voters admitted or were charged with voting in two states. They faced felony charges or diversion programs. These cases are instructive precisely because they are isolated and were caught—and because they didn’t approach the scale needed to alter statewide results.
What about mail-in ballots?
The evidence does not support claims that voting by mail invites widespread fraud. The MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL) documents the administrative controls for mail-in ballots (signature verification, unique barcodes and tracking, bipartisan handling, and audits). Research shows no evidence that mail ballots systematically increase fraud or advantage one party.
A common myth is that “dead people vote by mail.” Real audits don’t bear that out. Using Washington State’s all-mail system as a test, Stanford researchers linked voter files to death records and found only a handful of suspicious cases over years of voting—evidence that such fraud is extremely rare and that list maintenance and verification steps do their job.
If fraud is so rare, how do we know mail ballots are still counted accurately? Because the system’s routine checks generate measurable data. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s comprehensive survey of the 2022 midterms reports that 1.5% of returned mail ballots were rejected—mostly for mundane, non-fraud reasons like late arrival or missing signatures.
It’s also important to put anecdotes in statistical context. “A case here, a case there” can sound alarming on cable news, but in presidential years, well over 150 million ballots are cast nationwide. Studies that start with all ballots—rather than with headlines—consistently conclude that fraud is too scarce to change outcomes.
Why the disconnect between perception and reality? Partly, it’s because fraud fears are intuitively compelling and easy to allege but hard to disprove one-by-one on television. Meanwhile, the nuts-and-bolts defenses—secure voter rolls, ballot tracking, chain-of-custody rules, signature matching, bipartisan canvassing boards, and vote audits—aren’t flashy. Yet those are exactly the safeguards that kept 2020 secure despite a pandemic, record turnout, and unprecedented misinformation pressure according to the MIT Election Lab.
An Imperfect, but Secure System
None of this is to say the system is perfect, but the lesson from a decade of data is straightforward: the United States runs elections with extremely high integrity; illegal voting is a statistical anomaly; and mail-in ballots, when administered with standard safeguards, are secure. The very few times fraud does occur—whether a small handful of double votes or a larger absentee operation like North Carolina’s 9th—it’s uncovered, prosecuted, and, if necessary, remedied with audits or do-over elections.
❌ Dispelling Myths
Myth 1: “Voter fraud is widespread.”
➡️ Fact: Fraud is statistically near zero.
Myth 2: “Millions of dead people vote.”
➡️ Fact: Audits show only rare clerical errors or isolated cases.
Myth 3: “Mail-in ballots are insecure.”
➡️ Fact: Ballots use barcodes, signature checks, and tracking.
In 2022, 1.5% of mail ballots were rejected—mostly late or unsigned, not fraud.
Myth 4: “Fraud changed the 2020 election.”
➡️ Fact: Courts, audits, and bipartisan officials confirmed no widespread fraud.
Myth 5: “Fraud goes unchecked.”
➡️ Fact: Fraud is caught and prosecuted.
NC 2018: fraudulent race voided, re-run
FL 2020: double voters charged
If you hear a sweeping claim—“thousands of dead voters,” “ballots dumped,” “mail voting is corrupt”—ask for the audit trail. In every serious review of recent elections, the audit trail points the same way: tiny numbers of cases, caught by existing checks, with no evidence of systemic fraud. That’s why security officials called 2020 the most secure election in U.S. history and why independent analyses such as those by the Associated Press cited above, continue to find that election crime is rare, detectable, and ineffective at changing results.
The Bottom Line
American elections are among the most secure in the world. Fraud exists at the margins, but it is exceedingly rare, routinely detected, and never on a scale to alter major outcomes. Mail-in ballots are safe when administered under existing safeguards.
The facts show that rather than a system “rigged” against voters, we have one that works—and one that deserves our trust.
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