Voter fraud in the US: It’s rare, there are safeguards to catch it / AP News

By ALI SWENSON. Updated 3:11 PM EDT, October 9, 2024

‘You’re probably not going to have a perfect election system. But if you’re looking for one that you should have confidence in, you should feel good about that here in America. – Republican Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state and the advisory board chair of the Secure Elections Project.’

The nation’s voting system is multilayer with thousands of individual voting jurisdictions with safeguards builtin. That makes it impossible to accomplish a massive vote rigging scheme.

In-person voting requires a photo identification, signing a poll book with poll workers verifying that the person is registered to vote in that precint from a listing of registered voters for that poll location. Voting for a deceased person will be caught when voter rolls are updated with death certificates and obituaries.

What’s stopping people from committing voter fraud?

People committing voter fraud by tampering with ballots, registering with a different address, or casting someone else’s ballot risk punishment with hefty fines and prison,

What protections exist for absentee voting?

States have different methods, such requiring a notary or a witness signature.

Sometimes, alleged voter fraud isn’t what it seems

Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed voter fraud. But his claims were without merit.

@RalphHightower: Remember that Trump is a pathological liar. Trump lied during his 2016 presidential run, his 1/2017 – 1/2021 term, and his 2024 presidential run. Lie long and often enough, people may start believing his constant stream of lies as the truth.

An Associated Press investigation that explored every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump found there were fewer than 475 out of millions of votes cast. That was not nearly enough to tip the outcome. Democrat Joe Biden won the six states by a combined 311,257 votes.

Why voter fraud is unlikely to affect the presidential race

@RalphHightower: Trump lost 2020 by 6,979,606 votes. I wish that Kamala Harris, when asked about the 2020 election, turned to face the camera as if she were addressing the viewer directly and said, “Trump lost by nearly seven million votes. It would be extremely difficult to coordinate voter fraud and face the potential threat of fines and prison with seven million voters. I don’t know seven million people. Do you?”