We have less than one month until the presidential elections. The tension is high and Americans are afraid of voter fraud. NPR-PBS polled people, and the general stance is that there is concern about possible fraud. This is not without a reason. The concern comes from stories launched by the GOP and Donald Trump in the aftermath of the last elections.
While it’s fine to be concerned, one needs to know that voter fraud is a rare occurrence when it comes to US elections. Time and money have been spent on preventing and stopping voter fraud and even if it happens it is not on the level that could swing the elections in one direction. While Republicans have been screaming about this issue, there is no hard evidence to support this claim. Regardless of the year and the elections you want to take a look at, voter fraud is rare. Even cases that end up on the court are rejected due to insufficient evidence. To be honest, there is never any evidence of voter fraud happening on a great scale.
While the general stance is that voter fraud doesn’t happen, Donald Trump and Republicans have been very loud speaking about it. If you take a look at the Republican-led states you will notice that they’ve launched investigations into the matter following Trump’s false accusations. You can bet that these investigations have been conducted thoroughly and with an eye on details, but the amount of evidence found is so small that very clearly talks about individual strikes. Speaking of betting, here you can find the 2024 president election odds if you want to cast that type of vote for either Harris or Trump.
As far as voter fraud goes, let’s use Ohio as an example. This state has 6 million voters. In 2022, the Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose found only 75 voters who voted in two states. From an investigation that spanned more than one election, only 630 cases were given to the prosecutors. When you take a look at these numbers you can immediately notice that it’s a small sample by looking at the number of voters, signaling that there is no voter fraud happening on a large scale.
This is not a small matter, and accusations of voter fraud are as dangerous as they’re vile. Even independent sources such as The Associated Press inquired about the aftermath of the 2020 elections focusing only on swing states. After investigations it was deducted that there were only 475 potential cases of voter fraud. We are talking about more than 25 million voters. From that pool, less than 500 may have committed fraud. In essence, there is no voter fraud to talk about no matter how loud Donald Trump wants to be on the matter. Using it as rhetoric during rallies is a great way to stir up the crowd, but considering how far it is from reality it can pose a great danger during the election day if someone takes Trump’s words too seriously.
Voters who take this matter seriously and believe that voter fraud is actually happening can check out the records from previous elections in states such as Florida, Colorado, Maine, and Kansas and see that there were always accusations of fraud, but prosecutions are lacking in number due to lack of evidence of such events even occurring.
Furthermore, courts know how to differentiate between fraud and an honest mistake by voters. Often, cases that end up in court are those that have voters who only cast a vote believing they were eligible. The legal system doesn’t take these things lightly, and at the end of the day, it is not an easy task to prove voter fraud, especially when it happens at such a small level that we’re talking about individual cases.
In most cases, we’re talking about people who lost their right to vote due to being incarcerated. Many voters lose their rights when they commit a felony. Once they’re out of the system they believe that their right to vote is still there while they remain ineligible. In Florida, some former inmates were arrested for voting even though they were given voter registration cards.
When you look at the overall numbers of fraud in voters, even the small samples we have are a combination of people who committed a mistake and those who wanted to commit fraud. Usually, they are lumped together inflating the numbers of voter fraud. Even despite that those numbers have never been high enough to warrant a deeper investigation or to bring into doubt the legitimacy of the elections.
Anyone who fears that voter fraud can happen on a bigger scale can rest at ease. All states have trusted mechanisms in place to prevent voter fraud. It all starts by preventing ineligible people from voting. These voters are weeded out early on, and there is no reason for concern no matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican.
Every state has a law that requires it to be up to date with eligible voters and to remove those ineligible from their rolls. Furthermore, we have tools such as ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center). Systems such as these are devised to help states with issues such as voter fraud. Even if you still have doubts that illegal voting could happen, you should know that there is more than enough protection for all voters; for those that vote in person or those that mail-in. Just some parts of protection levels include things such as poll worker training, dropbox surveillance, and signature matching.
Every state takes election day seriously. Thus, they have devised effective protections and put levels of defense in place to prevent voter fraud. In the end, anyone who is thinking about it needs to know that the penalties associated with voter fraud are enormous. That should be enough to deter anyone from even thinking about it or committing it.
