Voter Fraud is a Lie

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Well, I may be Mr. Beat, but how can I trust that YOU are who you SAY you are, huh?
I don’t know you. Well, I know YOU. But, not YOU. So how can I trust you?!?
Hey speaking of which, how can we trust that elections are legit?
Well, lately here in the United States it seems like there’s a growing number of folks freaking out about voter fraud.

Voter Fraud Throughout History
​2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPttzp5QXmA (end of the video actually disproves voter fraud)
2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJwt6hd7Rg (2:00 in)
2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZi4CdxRu8 (1:00 in)
2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQW8iJpai8 (30 seconds in)
2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOwi8g2Yk2k
2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbZDFld60zE
2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGibg0oIZP0
2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1ZAwSOI408&t

Voter fraud is interfering with an election in order to cheat. This can happen by trying to increase or decrease a candidate’s vote share (show Election clip), by getting people to vote who are ineligible under the law, or by straight up forging ballots. Different types of voter fraud go down at different stages of the election process, from when voters first register all the way to when ballots are counted.

Look Samantha, voter fraud has existed for as long as there has been voters.
In Ancient Greece, people bribed others to vote a certain way and folks who weren’t citizens found ways to vote. In Ancient Rome, mobs blocked rivals from entering voting areas and sometimes completely took over voting locations.^1  In 1600s England, political candidates regularly threw parties with lots of good food and adult beverages to influence voters.^2

But what about the United States? Surely Americans, who are OBVIOUSLY the most MORAL people on the planet, have NEVER cheated in elections.

Nah man, ‘merica has a long history of voter fraud.

Squirrel: Will you just go through that history, punk?
Mr. Beat: Squirrel? I thought you got ran over by a car. It’s been so long.
Squirrel: Yeah yeah, I survived and back to terrorize you. Now TELL THEM ABOUT HOW VOTER FRAUD WAS COMMON THROUGHOUT AMERICAN HISTORY FLIMWAD!
Mr. Beat: Oh ok little buddy.

Now, it’s important to recognize that voting in the early days of the United States was nothing like it is today. For starters, only rich, property-owning white dudes could vote. Second, back then voting was far from secret. You had “voice voting,” in which people just verbally stated who they voted for and everybody in the room heard it. Often, people would just write down who they wanted elected on some random piece of paper. Back then, local governments didn’t print official, standardized ballots.

Fraud during this period in American history relied heavily on public influence, bribery, and straight up force, for realz. Candidates often did something called “treating,” or providing lots of alcohol, food, and gifts to voters near the polling site right before they cast their public votes. George Washington famously…or infamously…. did this. In 1758, he bought 144 gallons of alcohol for nearly 400 voters to get them to vote for him in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Not only that, there are accounts of polling sites being kept open later so that certain voters could vote.^3

By the 1820s, now poor, NON-property owning white dudes could vote. But as the number of voters dramatically increased, so did the number of dudes committin’ voter fraud, yo. Because local governments still hadn’t printed standardized voter ballots, political parties stepped in to print their own. As people often have strong connections to a political party, this made it super convenient for the voter. They literally just had a ticket, which was usually a distinct color, with all the political party’s candidates, that they just handed in at polling sites. But this convenience also led to shenanigans.

Urban political machines like New York City’s Tammany Hall sent the same people to vote at different polling sites. Often these fraudsters would disguise their appearance by shaving or changing clothes between stops. Another tactic was “cooping,” in which gangs would kidnap random people, force them to consume alcohol or other types of drugs, and drag them from precinct to precinct to vote the party line.

Many historians argue that voter fraud reached its peak during the Gilded Age. In the national elections of 1888, a letter circulated that suggested that Republican Party leaders were paying money to folks in Indiana to vote for Republican Party candidates. Of course, once word got out about this, there was somewhat of a backlash, and this led to a movement to adopt secret ballots, or a way to vote in which a voter’s identity is anonymous at the polling site. Local governments also began finally printing uniform, OFFICIAL ballots that were…yes…marked inside a private booth. The secret ballot made it nearly impossible for folks to be bribed or pressured to vote a certain way. Another Progressive Era reform to be proud of (sigh) Still, voter fraud persisted.

By the 1900s, voter fraud shifted from street-level bribery and intimidation to administrative manipulation (oh good gravy). Enter “graveyard votes,” or votes cast in the name of a person who had died but was still listed on the voter rolls. Perhaps the most infamous election where this supposedly happened? The presidential election of 1960, in which Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s powerful Democratic Party machine got a narrow victory for John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in the city. Some journalists claimed foul play, but historians generally say the number of “graveyard votes” in that area for that election were minimal.

Nope, the truth was that voter fraud by this time was actually quite difficult to get away with. Instead, voter suppression, or trying to prevent legal citizens from voting, became the preferred way to rig elections. And ironically, those calling for voter suppression often did so in the name of supposedly fighting voter fraud. Despite little evidence of actual voter fraud in the American South, white politicians there enacted poll taxes, passed grandfather clauses, and mandated literacy tests. Now, what was the REAL reason why they added these voting restrictions? To disenfranchise black citizens, of course. It wasn’t until Congress passed both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 24th Amendment that much of these shenanigans finally stopped.

Modern Election Security
In recent decades, election administrative controls have tightened. Now we have paper trails, super secure digital tabulators, voter roll databases, and nonpartisan post-election audits. And indeed, the physical opportunity to execute systematic voter fraud is virtually impossible, man. Today, before casting a ballot, voters in every state except for North Dakota…randomly….HAVE to register through systems that verify their Social Security number, driver’s license, or address. States constantly cross-reference voter rolls with death certificates, DMV updates, and multi-state databases. There are mandatory audits. Severe legal consequences for voter fraud….like, in most states, we’re talking years in prison and five-figure dollar fines. Polling sites, vote-counting facilities, and ballot drop boxes tend to be under very strict public surveillance. Election workers from competing political parties jointly supervise every step of the process, from tracking the ballot boxes to signature verification, to canvassing in front of polling sites.

One of the biggest reasons why voter fraud today…it’s highly decentralized, baby.
In the United States, elections are not nationalized. Counties and municipalities run elections, so it’s bottom up, not top down. There are more than 10,000 different election jurisdictions in the country.

Squirrel: 10,000?
Mr. Beat 10,000

Every locality uses its own registration systems and ballot designs. They even have different types of voting machines. Any attempt launching any kind of widespread voter fraud effort would literally require compromising THOUSANDS of independent systems simultaneously and without detection.

That all said, voter fraud in the United States may be really rare, but voter SUPPRESSION is unfortunately more common than you probably think. I briefly go over this trend in THIS video, but I think I’m gonna have to revisit this trend in another video because it’s really gotten out of hand.

How Rare Is Voter Fraud?
But anyway, in conclusion, voter fraud is real, but today is really rare. How rare?

According to research by the Brennan Center for Justice, overall rates of voter fraud are around .0003%. Yeah This dude named Justin Levitt conducted a massive study in which he tracked all credible allegations of in-person voter impersonation from 2000 to 2014. What did he find? Well, only 31 instances of voter impersonation out of 1 BILLION votes cast.^4

Even the Heritage Foundation, the highly influential and very conservative think tank, did a study that found voter fraud to be very rare. Between 1989 and 2025, it tracked just 1,619 instances of voter fraud in the country. According to my calculations, around 2 BILLION votes were cast in the United States during that time period. Well shoot, that’s an even lower voter fraud rate than what the Brennan Center found. Based on the Heritage Foundation’s data, the voter fraud rate is .00008095%. Holy moly. And there have been countless other studies looking at voter fraud in the USA. Every single freaking time it’s found to be rare.

Statistically speaking, an American is MUCH more likely to be struck by lightning than come across voter fraud. They’re much more likely to be hit by a meteor falling from space or be injured by a toilet. They’re more likely to wake up from a stroke speaking a totally different accent.

I hope you get my point by now. Voter fraud ain’t likely to happen, man.
And yet, look at Google Trends since Google began tracking the phrase “voter fraud.” Based on internet search traffic, around the time of every American presidential election, you saw a bunch of people searching up “voter fraud.” And then, BOOM, look at 2020, man. Well geez, Bertha, there MUST have been lots of voter fraud during the presidential election of 2020 if so many people were looking it up, right? Right?

Well, as it turns out, there was absolutely NO evidence of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election of 2020.^5  The only reason why so many people were looking up “voter fraud” right after this particular election was because of the most influential man in the world…yep…arguably the most successful influencer of all time….was just SAYING there was widespread voter fraud in the election. (clip) No evidence. Just vibes. Just because so many of his supporters believed him, doesn’t mean he was right. This dude was just a sore loser, and with a long history of lying, I might add.

And flash forward to today, and a recent survey found that just 60% of Americans are confident there won’t be voter fraud in the upcoming midterm elections.^6

Which is why I made this video. I made this video to the 40% of Americans who don’t currently trust our elections. If you’re one of the 40%, you’re wrong. Elections in the United States are generally secure. You’re more likely to get drunk by eating bread than find voter fraud in this country.

In fact, in my opinion, your vote has never been more secure in human history than it is right now.
​
But what do YOU think? How are you feeling about the upcoming midterm elections in the United States? Let me know below. Also, in case you haven’t heard, we’ve just launched a new podcast called “Let the Record Show” about important court cases in U.S. history, it’s with the ACLU and I’m really excited about how it turned out. It’s available anywhere you get your podcasts, including Florida. Thanks for staying curious!

Real voter fraud:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWFDR0yyG38
Sources/further investigation:https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/11/the-history-of-stealing-elections/
https://daily.jstor.org/political-corruption-in-athens-and-rome/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/election-integrity/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
https://trends.google.com/explore?q=voter%2520fraud&date=all&geo=US&gprop=web
https://ballotpedia.org/Electoral_fraud
https://electionfraud.heritage.org/search
https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Spring07/elections.cfm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/back-in-19th-century-your-election-ballot-could-double-work-art-180985220/
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^1. https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/curiosities/political-violence-during-tribune-of-clodius-pulcher/#:~:text
^2. https://ecppec.ncl.ac.uk/features/bribery
^3. https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/10/election-fraud-voter-suppression-18th-century-style/
^4. https://archive.is/9kafE
^5. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqorZ61AYFqZU-EDQBBzjqfvAoC5nKcB/view
^6. https://today.ucsd.edu/story/trust-in-elections-declines-across-party-lines-ahead-of-2026-midterms-uc-san-diego-survey-finds