Rigged voting machines. Illegal ballot harvesting. Repeat, noncitizen and even dead voters. Claims of election fraud exploded in 2020 as former President Trump and his allies sought to portray their narrow election loss as something more nefarious. Concern that widespread fraud could tilt the scale is on the rise again. Pervasive fraud would be difficult to achieve in the U.S. thanks to layers of protection embedded in the election system. When it does occur, it’s most often caught and prosecuted, reports the Hill. Election fraud, is “minuscule,” said Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution. “It’s never affected an election in recent memory. It’s amazing that they find the people that have committed fraud because they’re so small.. It just, frankly, doesn’t happen.”
An analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s election fraud database showed that the share of reported cases of fraud over the past 13 to 38 years across several key swing states is less than 1 percent. In Pennsylvania, the foundation analyzed 32 elections over 30 years. Just 39 cases of voter fraud were identified — 0.000039% of the more than 100 million ballots cast. Most states request in-person voters to provide some sort of ID or to verify their identity through other methods; For absentee voters, all states require a signature. Some 31 states conduct signature verification, 10 states require a different form of verification and the other nine only confirm a ballot envelope has been signed. Federal law requires states to maintain voter rolls that are regularly updated. Ballots are created with special paper so they are not easily replicated. “The whole process is under lock and key, from the time those ballots are printed and delivered to polling places to the time that they’re put through the counting machines at the polling place,” Kamarck said. The 2024 presidential race has been rife with misinformation. More than 50 false election narratives have been published since September, with 15 of those narratives emerging in recent weeks said NewsGuard, which tracks misinformation.
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