Voting discussion thread

If a voter bill causes a 5% reduction in voting to stop a .01% potential of cheating, is this really what we should be focusing our limited (marginally effective) congressional resources on?

If someone has to travel by airplane at hundreds of dollars just to retain their right to vote, do they even still have a right to vote? Asking for Alaska...
 
I don't think anyone has ever said that fraud never exists, just that it's not massive, as posited by the conspiracy partisans...
Yet we only know by who is caught - those that aren't cannot ever be disproven.

I don't know how common it is, but I also don't necessarily trust the people who are telling me it's uncommon.
 
Why is this unreal?

While I’m no fan of President Crazy, it’s ironic that now all of a sudden what can NEVER happen (remember “computers are not tied to the internet” from 2020?) is somehow going to be done by the Keystone Trumps.

Hell, California Senator Barbara Boxer told us all back in 2004 we HAD to have paper ballots. At the same time, supposedly Diebold voting machines rigged the outcome of that election (ironically they were later bought out by Dominion, and went from being hated by the left to hated by the right).

Folks may not like the “both sides” argument and yes it’s sometimes throwing shade but pretending Democrats have never done most of the same things they get mad at republicans about - from gerrymandering to claiming elections were stolen - doesn’t change the fact they have. They just didn’t storm the US Capitol over it.





Yet.
 
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Yet we only know by who is caught - those that aren't cannot ever be disproven.

I don't know how common it is, but I also don't necessarily trust the people who are telling me it's uncommon.

I'm starting to love the AI Slop!

Identifying a single, definitive "proven" number of voter fraud cases is tricky because different organizations define "voter fraud" differently. Some include only individual voter impersonation, while others include administrative errors, registration fraud, or illegal campaigning.
However, data from major studies and tracking databases provide a clear picture: while fraud does happen, it is statistically infinitesimal relative to the billions of ballots cast.

1. The Heritage Foundation Database

The Heritage Foundation maintains one of the most cited databases of "proven instances of voter fraud."
  • Total Reported: As of late 2025/early 2026, their database contains roughly 1,500 to 1,600 proven instances of election fraud (this includes criminal convictions, civil penalties, and judicial findings).
  • Context: This count spans several decades (some cases dating back to the 1940s and 70s) and covers all types of elections, from small-town mayoral races to national ones.
  • National Election Scope: When filtered for national elections since 2000, the number of cases involving actual fraudulent ballots is significantly lower than the total, as many entries involve registration errors or local petition fraud.

2. The Brennan Center for Justice & Academic Studies

The Brennan Center and various university studies focus specifically on voter impersonation—the type of fraud where someone pretends to be someone else at the polls.
  • Incident Rate: Their research consistently finds incident rates between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.
  • 2000–2014 Study: A comprehensive 2014 study found only 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud out of over 1 billion ballots cast in the U.S. during that 14-year period.
  • DOJ Findings: A five-year U.S. Department of Justice probe (2002–2007) into federal elections found that only 0.00000013% of ballots cast were fraudulent.

3. Key Categories of "Proven" Fraud

To understand the numbers, it's helpful to distinguish between the types of cases typically found in these databases:
Type of FraudDescriptionFrequency
Voter ImpersonationSomeone showing up at a poll pretending to be someone else.Extremely Rare (handful of cases per decade).
Double VotingVoting in two different states or jurisdictions.Rare (usually caught by cross-state data matching).
Absentee/Mail-in FraudStealing or altering a mail-in ballot.Slightly more common than impersonation but still rare.
Registration FraudSubmitting fake names on registration forms (often by paid canvassers).Occurs, but rarely results in a fraudulent vote being cast.
[HR][/HR]

Summary of the Data

If you look at "proven cases" in the sense of criminal convictions for illegal voting in national elections since 2000, the total is in the low hundreds. When compared to the billions of votes cast in that timeframe, the rate is so low that experts across the political spectrum generally agree it has not been sufficient to tilt the outcome of a national election.

Most "irregularities" reported on election nights are ultimately traced back to clerical errors, voter typos, or machine malfunctions rather than intentional, proven fraud.



The Heritage Foundation having only 1600 cases is good evidence, since they claim millions in every election cycle.
 
Well, thanks...
I mean, what do you want me to say?

I carry auto insurance, but I've never been in a wreck (in almost 40 years of driving).
I wear my seat belt as well, never needed it.
I've never had my home broken into yet I have an alarm system to protect my family.

In so many areas of life we protect against the unseen, often at great cost over our lifetimes, just in case something bad happens. Even though it mostly doesn't.

It's odd to me that voting is one issue where 'there's no record of it happening on a wide scale' means we should ignore the issue.
 
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Yet we only know by who is caught - those that aren't cannot ever be disproven.

I don't know how common it is, but I also don't necessarily trust the people who are telling me it's uncommon.
Voter fraud imo is like shoplifting. I have seen instances of it reported but I dont see Walmart failing because of too much shoplifting. I dont see Dollar General stores closing because of too much shoplifting.
 
I think that most of what I have read indicates that voting is fairly secure across the country. And not enough leeway to likely affect a national race.

Voting in Alabama seems very secure indeed. You pop out a license or secondary identifier and boom, you are good. I have no issue with the license requirement as long as you have a back up for those who have a problem but can otherwise prove their identity.
 
Voter fraud imo is like shoplifting. I have seen instances of it reported but I dont see Walmart failing because of too much shoplifting. I dont see Dollar General stores closing because of too much shoplifting.
I mean, they do, though:

And further, if we don’t do what we can to stop fraud, what do we do when there is an election stolen? How will we even know?

I don’t think we have seen that happen on a large scale, but I cannot fathom why we wouldn’t want to curtail it further is we can.
 
Voter fraud imo is like shoplifting. I have seen instances of it reported but I dont see Walmart failing because of too much shoplifting. I dont see Dollar General stores closing because of too much shoplifting.
Maybe not, but the next time you want to rage about the price of your jelly beans, remember that losses are factored into prices.
 
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I mean, they do, though:

And further, if we don’t do what we can to stop fraud, what do we do when there is an election stolen? How will we even know?

I don’t think we have seen that happen on a large scale, but I cannot fathom why we wouldn’t want to curtail it further is we can.
I thought we had already had an election stolen on a large scale? That's what I keep being told...

Again, I will reference an earlier post. People who do this are stupid. Evidently this guy has mental problems. The fact this guy is being prosecuted provides confidence the system is working. There is no system that can be devised that will prevent attempts to commit voter fraud. There will always be stupid people out there willing to test the system. If you dont catch people and prosecute them from time to time you dont know if your system is working.

I will add further, if you're going to have fraud you want it to be voters attempting to file fraudulent votes because that takes significant numbers to affect the outcome. What you dont want is corrupt registrars falsifying vote tallies. Or politicians trying to suppress voter turnout along party or demographic lines...
 
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