Trump calls US voter fraud 'rampant'; studies and prosecutions show few cases

Centre · 1Ahead of the US midterm elections on 3 November, President Donald Trump has alleged "rampant" cheating in postal voting and by non-citizens, and has offered a $1m reward to people who report voter fraud leading to a conviction. 1 Centre · 1BBC Verify reported that studies suggest actual cases of either kind are extremely rare. A Brookings Institution analysis of the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections found about four fraud cases per 10 million postal votes, and a 2020 American Statistical Association study found no evidence that mail voting increased fraud overall. 1 Centre · 1The Heritage Foundation's database, which BBC Verify checked, lists 325 convictions for fraudulent use of postal ballots over 20 years and 24 convictions of non-citizens for voting between 2005 and 2025. A 2026 Reuters analysis found 129 people criminally charged over 30 years for non-citizen voting in federal courts, 73 of them convicted. 1

Centre · 1On policy, a Trump executive order directing the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on government citizen lists was rejected by the Supreme Court as "arbitrary and capricious" so close to the midterms, though the court said it could revisit the issue. Trump has also failed to get Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require photo ID and proof of citizenship; critics say it could depress turnout, citing a Brennan Center finding that about 21.3 million citizens lack ready proof of citizenship. 1 Centre · 1The Supreme Court has allowed the administration to use the federal SAVE database to check voter citizenship. Critics say its data can be outdated, and results have been mixed: Georgia identified 432 possible non-citizens over 30 years, while all 185 names that the Department of Homeland Security gave Nevada turned out to be citizens, according to state officials. 1 Centre · 1The White House has pointed to a New Jersey software glitch that registered about 6,600 non-citizens between June 2023 and June 2024; state officials said fewer than 400 cast ballots. The Justice Department asked California not to count 20,000 postal ballots, but an appeals court rejected the request, and the department has charged 28 people out of that group. 1

Left · 1A Washington Post investigation, summarised by Raw Story, found more than 180 people charged with illegally voting or registering as non-citizens since the start of Trump's second term, about 70 percent of them in the last two months, and nearly two dozen convicted. None of the cases alleges an organised scheme, and among the 61 defendants whose party could be verified, Democrats and Republicans were about equal; several said they voted for Trump in 2024. 2 Left · 1The Post reported that the Justice Department told all 93 US attorney's offices to prioritise such cases and DHS reassigned hundreds of fraud detection officers, but internal records showed few results. Some cases collapsed: a Miami judge ruled the misdemeanor statute most often used unconstitutional, and a jury acquitted a defendant on all charges. 2 Left · 1Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged investigators haven't found a pattern but said "At some point, it has to become meaningful to the media." Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels said a noncitizen ballot for a Republican is as illegal as one for a Democrat and that many defendants falsely swore they were citizens. Notre Dame election law professor Derek Muller said it is "not happening at scale". 2