Voter ID laws stop widespread fraud

What we know

Voter ID laws require voters to present identification, often specifically government-issued photo identification, before casting a ballot in person. Supporters argue these laws are necessary to prevent voter impersonation fraud, someone voting under a false identity or voting more than once. Multiple large-scale studies have examined how common this specific type of fraud actually is, and consistently find it is extremely rare. A widely cited study by Justin Levitt at Loyola Law School, examining over one billion votes cast in general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 to 2014, identified only 31 credible incidents of voter impersonation.

The Brennan Center for Justice, which has tracked voter fraud claims extensively, similarly reports that documented cases of in-person voter impersonation are measured in the dozens nationally over multi-year periods, not the thousands or millions sometimes suggested in political rhetoric. A Trump administration Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, formed in 2017 specifically to investigate claims of widespread voter fraud, was disbanded in 2018 without producing evidence of fraud on the scale alleged, according to reporting on internal commission documents and statements from commission members.

This does not mean voter ID laws have no effect or no legitimate rationale; election administrators cite id requirements as one part of a broader verification system, and public trust in elections is itself a policy-relevant goal separate from measured fraud rates. Studies on the effects of voter ID laws on turnout are more genuinely mixed. Some research finds modest reductions in turnout among groups less likely to hold qualifying ID, including lower-income voters, elderly voters, and some racial minorities, while other studies, including a widely discussed 2019 NBER working paper by Cantoni and Pons, found smaller or statistically insignificant turnout effects once other factors were controlled for. This is a genuinely contested empirical area within political science, unlike the fraud-rate question, where the evidence is comparatively one-sided.

The claim "voter ID stops fraud" is best understood as mixed because it combines a defensible policy rationale, some verification requirement can plausibly deter some fraud, with an empirically overstated premise, that in-person voter impersonation fraud is common enough to represent a significant threat to election integrity absent ID laws. Election security experts, including those at the Bipartisan Policy Center, note that other forms of election-related concerns, such as mail ballot handling or voter registration list accuracy, are separate issues from in-person impersonation and are addressed by different safeguards entirely. Election security researchers distinguish this narrow fraud-rate question from separate, legitimate debates about voter list accuracy and election administration funding, areas where genuine improvements have been implemented in many states independent of ID requirements specifically. The Bipartisan Policy Center's election administration research has emphasized that investment in voter list maintenance and post-election audits addresses different vulnerabilities than photo identification requirements target.

Common claims

• Voter impersonation fraud is widespread and requires ID laws to addressNot supported. The Brennan Center documented 31 credible impersonation cases out of 1 billion ballots over 14 years.
• Voter ID laws are unconstitutionalFalse. The Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law in Crawford v. Marion County (2008) in a 6-3 ruling.
• Voter ID laws have no effect on legitimate voter turnoutContested. Multiple studies find reduced turnout among eligible voters without qualifying ID, particularly minority and low-income voters.

Evidence hierarchy

All sources

• The Truth About Voter FraudBrennan Center for Justice · 2007
• A Comprehensive Investigation of Voter ImpersonationJustin Levitt, Loyola Law School / Washington Post · 2014
• Strict Voter ID Laws Don't Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008-2018National Bureau of Economic Research · 2019
• Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity recordsBipartisan Policy Center · 2018

Related terms