The Myth of Widespread Voter Fraud and the Consequences of Voter ID Laws

In 2020, Arizonans elected Republican Stephen Richer as the Maricopa County Recorder. This meant he was tasked with overseeing the 2020 elections in the most populated county in Arizona, where his party and their presidential candidate, Donald Trump, had insisted upon widespread fraud and that “the entire database…[had] been deleted."—a notion Richer claims “is as disprovable as saying 2 plus 2 equals 5.” Despite Republican state senators’ best efforts to identify fraud—including initiating a hand count of over 2.1 million ballots—only 19 illegal ballots were found and prosecuted. Richer acknowledges that while this was the “most scrutinized election in human history,” he can confidently announce that the elections in Maricopa County were fully legitimate. Despite repeated disproof of widespread fraud, the persistence of such claims has fueled the push for stricter voter ID laws across several states.

Voter ID Laws for Election Security

Due to the emergence beginning in 2020 of claims challenging the integrity of the election process, 29 million Americans now live under new voter ID laws. One such law in North Carolina, crafted with the goal of preventing voter misconduct by requiring a photo ID to vote, was thrown out by the state supreme court in 2018 for targeting African American voters, but reinstated under the rule of two new GOP judges. A similar case occurred in Texas where the court ruled against another restrictive voter ID law that judges concluded would disproportionately affect minorities, who are less likely to possess the necessary ID requisites than white citizens. These ID laws were meant to protect against fraud, however, the fear of racially targeted voter suppression has stopped many of them from passing. The North Carolina Supreme Court’s original majority opinion on their voter ID law, or S.B. 824, concluded that the “disproportionate racial impact of S.B. 824 and its ameliorative provisions, as well as testimony confirming that the legislature’s Republican supermajority ‘pushed S.B. 824’ through the legislative process ‘with limited analysis and scrutiny,’” was enough to rule that the law was discriminatory and racially motivated, based on similar findings to the Texas case. 

However, others are less inclined to feel the same way. The Heritage Foundation, a well-known conservative think tank, argues that voter ID laws are necessary as a preventative measure against voter misconduct. The foundation’s most prominent assertion is based on a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which provides data that requiring photo ID has little to no negative effect on national registration or turnout numbers—meaning ID laws should continue to hold standing. However, it is important to note that the NBER report also finds that ID laws play only a minimal part in preventing fraud (of which there is little evidence to support its existence in the first place), essentially proving that voter ID legislation is useless in its intended effect. A Princeton study challenges these findings, arguing that the impact of voter ID laws on voter turnout is difficult to accurately measure on a national level due to the numerous variables that turn out voters. In response, researchers point to more localized studies like the United States Government Accountability Office (USGAO) report on voter turnout in Kansas and Tennessee—both states that implemented voter ID laws before the 2012 presidential election. The study found a 2% decrease in turnout amongst all voters, with drops specifically in black, young, and newly registered populations. While voter ID laws may have minimal effects in some regions, Kansas and Tennessee highlight that significant risks have already come with their implementation. So, what is the value of legislation whose intended goals fail and have proven negative effects?

The overall consensus on voter ID laws, based on the data, is that the underlying justification for them does not hold. Experts on both sides have found little to no evidence of fraud, which begs the question of why lawmakers would push an issue like this in the first place. Although the aforementioned Heritage Foundation consistently asserts that voter fraud is a significant concern in the U.S., their own voter fraud database shows that between 2000 and 2024, there were only 1,561 proven cases of voter fraud across congressional and presidential elections amongst the billions of ballots being cast in that period. Moreover, most cases were isolated incidents and not part of any organized fraud effort. All of the data reinforces the idea that voter misconduct is extremely rare, demonstrating that those pushing for voter ID laws are concerning themselves with a problem for which there is little evidence. As a result, they support legislation that, intentionally or not, has disproportionately affected minority voters by imposing stricter voting requirements that create barriers for something that otherwise should be a constitutional right. While it may not reduce turnout uniformly across the United States, proposing laws such as these with significant risks and no tangible benefits is a misguided and harmful approach. Lawmakers should put aside politics and instead prioritize increasing voter turnout through non-restrictive measures, addressing fraud concerns only when substantial evidence to support them emerges.

Connor Swenson is a sophomore at Brown University, concentrating in Political Science and Philosophy. He is a writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at connor_swenson@brown.edu.

Ashley Park is a freshman at Brown University, concentrating in English and Political Science. She is an editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at ashley_h_park@brown.edu