In U.S. elections, voter fraud is very rare

How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections, according to Alice Clapman, senior counsel for voter rights at the Brennan Center for Justice

“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.

Laws require states to remove ineligible or deceased voters from their rolls. The Electronic registration Information Center is a tool that helps states share voter data.

She said that the numbers don’t distinguish between an allegation that is incorrect or a circumstance where someone has voted in bad faith.

Conservative-leaning groups lump all eligible cases with those of people who intended to commit fraud, Clapman said.

A lot of these cases involve people who lost their votes because of a felony conviction. In Florida, 20 people were arrested for voting even though they were given voter registration cards due to the fact that they were formerly incarcerated. In Texas, a woman named Crystal Mason said she thought she was eligible to vote in 2016 even though she had not been convicted of a crime.

Sometimes cases get thrown out or face a difficult path through the legal system, even when they do make it to court. It happens frequently in cases where ineligible voters accidentally vote in good faith, believing they are eligible.

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.

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. More than 6 million people voted in Ohio that year.

The office has referred a total of 630 cases to prosecutors over the course of several elections, and voter fraud is still rare in the state.

“And the answer has overwhelmingly been throughout the years that this is extremely rare,” Clapman said. Sometimes courts look at specific evidence and then conclude that the evidence is not there.

Source: How we know voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections

The Virginia Republican National Committee vowed to remove all false positives from the state voter registration list before the Nov. 5 election, arguing in a filing

According to a NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. Republicans have been raising doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. elections after years of former President Donald Trump.

Across the country, conservatives have questioned the legitimacy of voter registration numbers. The Republican National Committee, newly reconstituted under Trump, has also been involved in efforts to challenge voter rolls before the November election.

Youngkin said Virginians and Americans would see this for what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth.

The election officials in Virginia used data from the Department of Motor Vehicles to determine voting eligibility, according to the filing. The lawsuit says that the data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles can be outdated and inaccurate, but officials haven’t taken additional steps to verify a person’s citizenship.

On Aug. 7 — 90 days before the Nov. 5 federal election — Youngkin’s order formalized a systemic process to remove people who are “unable to verify that they are citizens” to the state Department of Motor Vehicles from the statewide voter registration list.

In its lawsuit, the Justice Department said the quiet-period provision reduces the risk that errors in maintaining registration lists will disenfranchise eligible voters by ensuring they have enough time to address errors before the election.