This morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump took to twitter to allege widespread voter fraud:
Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2016
The day before, he tweeted something very similar:
The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2016
The first tweet came only hours after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence made a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, saying that his ticket would "absolutely accept the results of the election." The second came only minutes after campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN that Trump's frequent claims that the election is "rigged" referred to a biased mainstream media and not voter fraud.
While the Trump campaign figures out how to get on the same page, rest assured that in-person voter fraud is incredibly rare. Bigly:
- This study found only 31 instances of credible voter fraud in over 1 billion ballots cast.
- A Brennan Center study found only a tiny fraction of alleged voter fraud was actually legitimate.
- A national study found no credible evidence to suggest that voter impersonation was a problem.
- A two-year, $250,000 investigation in Iowa found 117 possible instances of voter fraud. Of those, only six led to criminal convictions.
