![[US Midterm Elections 2026] Trump claims that voter fraud is “rampant” but evidence shows it is extremely rare](/api/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Face%2Fws%2F240%2Fcpsprodpb%2Fd705%2Flive%2F81506150-d23e-11f1-93e1-3b657b665bcf.jpg)
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Jake Houghton, BBC Verify (Verification Team)
US President Donald Trump has announced a $1 million reward for anyone reporting voter fraud that leads to a conviction.
Ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, Trump has expressed his belief that the security of voting is in doubt. It alleges that fraud is "rampant" due to mail-in voting and voting by non-citizens who do not have the right to vote.
However, research shows that this is actually extremely rare.
BBC Verify examined the relevant evidence and Mr Trump's proposed changes to the voting system.
How are we going to change mail-in voting?
Mr. Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims for years that voting by mail leads to widespread fraud.
Meanwhile, Trump has also urged Republicans to vote by mail in the midterm elections. He also said he has voted by mail in the past.
Mr. Trump has been trying to pass a bill in Congress that would allow only the disabled, sick, military, and travelers to vote by mail. But so far they have not been successful.
In most states, you can vote by mail without giving a reason. Approximately 48 million people nationwide voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump signed an executive order in March directing the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters who appear on lists created by the agency. The executive order also required states to use the same envelopes for mail-in voting.
However, in September, the U.S. Supreme Court granted an injunction to block the executive order. He called the changes, coming just before midterm elections, "arbitrary and capricious." However, he said there is a possibility that it will be reconsidered after the election.
Rules for validating mail-in ballots vary by state. But each state verifies voter eligibility by checking the voter information on the ballot against information the state maintains. Most states also verify signatures.
What does the evidence tell us about mail-in voting fraud?
Studies of multiple U.S. elections show that mail-in voting fraud is extremely rare.
The Brookings Institution, a U.S. policy research think tank, found an average of four cases of mail-in voting fraud per 10 million votes cast in the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.
The study used a database from the American think tank Heritage Foundation, which records election fraud that has led to convictions. The foundation has previously been sympathetic to Trump.
BBC Verify looked at this database over the past 20 years. It found that there were 325 recorded convictions for mail-in voting fraud.
A 2020 study by the American Statistical Association looked at instances of voter fraud in eight states that send mail-in ballots to all voters and found no evidence that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud overall.
For example, in Oregon, more than 100 million mail-in ballots were sent between 2000 and 2020, and there were 40 fraudulent votes.
How did they try to change the rules for identification?
Mr. Trump claims that voting by non-citizens who are ineligible to vote is rampant. He said Democrats are allowing millions of immigrants into the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election and "giving them more and more votes."
It is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Punishments can include imprisonment, fines, and deportation.
The ballot measure Mr. Trump is pushing through Congress would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID before voting. Additionally, it would require proof of citizenship to be shown when registering to vote and confirming continued citizenship.
There are concerns that tightening voter ID requirements will lead to a decline in voter turnout. This is because some people may not have a passport or government-issued photo ID.
"Unlike many countries, we don't have a national government-issued identification card," said Jonathan Diaz, a voting rights expert at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal organization. "A driver's license is the most common, but it does not prove immigration status, so the identification that most Americans carry is not enough to vote."
According to a 2023 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal think tank, about 21.3 million people, or about 9% of Americans of voting age, cannot readily produce proof of citizenship.
Others argue that the current laws regarding voter identification do not pose any significant problems.
"When scholars look at the impact of voter ID laws, they don't find much evidence of either the fraud that conservatives claim or the voter suppression that progressive groups warn about," said Walter Olson, an election expert at the Cato Institute, a conservative U.S. think tank.
Several Republican-controlled states have increased requirements for voters to show ID in recent years. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that 21 restrictive voting laws with stricter ID requirements have been enacted since the 2024 presidential election.
What does the evidence tell us about non-citizen voting?
Some studies suggest that noncitizens vote in federal elections in very few cases.
According to the Heritage Foundation's database, there were 24 convictions for such acts between 2005 and 2025.
In a July article, Reuters analyzed a case brought to federal court regarding non-citizen voting. Over the past 30 years, 129 people have been criminally prosecuted, with 73 convictions.
"The very fact that it's illegal for noncitizens to vote is a very strong deterrent in itself, because voting is extremely high-risk when many people are worried about their immigration status," said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"There has never been any evidence that there were large numbers of non-citizens who voted illegally, much less that they influenced the election."
What happens to non-citizens who are already registered?
Mr. Trump is urging states to use the federal government's SAVE database, which can check various qualifications of foreign nationals, to identify voters suspected of being non-citizens and remove them from voter rolls.
The database provides access to information on naturalized citizens and non-citizens who have contacted the federal government in the past. It was introduced in the 1980s to help government agencies determine individuals' eligibility for government benefits based on their immigration status.
Some have questioned the validity of using this data to remove people from voter rolls. This is because the data may be outdated or may include people who later became citizens. Still, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to use the data for this purpose.
"Federal databases, if you understand their limitations, can be invaluable to states trying to update their voter rolls," said Olson of the Cato Institute. "In that sense, the part of the Trump administration's plan that requires information sharing is positive. But the second half of the plan, which requires states to treat the database as authoritative even though there are obvious flaws and inaccuracies in it, is problematic."
Use of this database is voluntary for each state. Few non-citizens have been found in states that have recently used it.
In Georgia, 432 potential non-citizens were listed on voter rolls over the past 30 years.
The Department of Homeland Security provided the state of Nevada with the names of 185 people who it said were noncitizens who were improperly registered to vote. But state officials said they found all of them were actually citizens.
The White House points to New Jersey as an example. The state registered about 6,600 non-citizens to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 due to a software glitch in the state's driver's license authority. State officials say fewer than 400 people actually voted, and all have now been removed from the system.
Ahead of the midterm elections, the federal Department of Justice has asked California not to count mail-in ballots from 20,000 people who are "likely to be registered non-citizens." This request was later invalidated by the Court of Appeals.
The ministry indicted 28 of those 20,000 people. They say they are non-citizens who had illegally registered to vote.
(English article Trump says US voter fraud is 'rampant' - evidence suggests it is extremely rare)
