Elections are upon us as the presidential election is decided this year in November. Politicians have come to question voting fraud calling for stricter voting protections. In May, House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed that a lot of illegal noncitizens are voting in federal elections without any evidence to back up his statement. In July, similar statements were claimed at the Republican National Convention. Are there statistics to show that noncitizens are voting in the elections?
The Heritage Foundation campaigns against voter fraud, and even passed legislation that requires photo ID for all voter registration. Its database has collected a total of 1,546 cases of voter fraud where they have brough criminal cases against the individuals who have committed electoral fraud. Among the 1,546 cases of voter fraud, 68 cases have been noncitizen voting fraud dating back to the 1980s. 95% of the cases involve U.S. citizens, while only 5% involve noncitizen voters.
This evidence shows that noncitizen voter fraud is incredibly rare. For the past 40 years, there have been less than 100 cases of noncitizen voters illegally voting in elections according to the Heritage Foundation’s research. Considering over one billion votes have been cast in uncountable elections in the past 40 years, noncitizen voting equates to below 0.0001%.
Studies have also been conducted in recent elections reflecting similar results. In 2017, Brennan Center analyzed 42 jurisdictions, which received over 23.5 million votes in the 2016 election and found 30 cases of noncitizens voting. Again, this number equates to 0.001% of votes in the 2016 election. Looking at the research and statistics, noncitizen voting is not as serious as is being claimed.
