Election Fraud And Its Impact

Election fraud is and has been since the start of our nation, a problem people try to solve; new acts, bills, and laws are passed often to attempt to make voting as just and fair as possible. With all this happening, how much is it really happening? How big of a problem is it? 

In Arizona, 4,462,819 voted in 2024—three of which were caught committing election fraud. In Texas, 18.6 million people voted in 2024, yet there was only one account of voter fraud, including 449 fraudulent votes. There are very few accounts of election fraud, so it is strange that it is often a problem that people are trying to solve.

The SAVE Act

A new bill in the process of attempting to be passed (as of 4/16/2025) called The SAVE Act is restricting voting significantly in an attempt to restrict the election fraud “problem.” This act includes making mail-in voters go in person to the election office before the registration deadline or at the voter’s assigned polling place to give an approved ID. Although when thought about, providing in-person identification sounds like a smart idea, it destroys the point of mailing in one’s vote at all. For those in rural and exclusive communities, it might be hard to get to a polling place— that is the reason they need to mail in their votes. With today’s technology, there should be a way to allow online identification.

Read the full bill here– https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text

Making Voting Fair Throughout History

For years, many adults have gone down to the voting polls to make decisions for their country. Voting rights have significantly grown since the beginning of the United States. White men twenty-one and over could vote in 1776, White women could vote in 1920, Black adults could vote in 1965, and eighteen-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1971. Despite these huge milestones, the U.S. government has started to crack down on voting.

In the 2024 presidential election, about 156 million people throughout each state cast their votes. This may sound like a lot but there are approximately 258.41 million adult citizens in the states. That means that 100 million adults didn’t vote either because they didn’t have access to a voting poll near where they live or simply because they didn’t want to. If the government wants “fair” voting, they should make voting more accessible and easier, not more restricted. 

There doesn’t seem to be a clear way more laws can be implemented to make voting more precise while not making it harder for people. Because we have given each US citizen adult the right to vote, they should be able to vote easily—it should be accessible.

Penalties

On the penalty side of election fraud, in Australia, impersonation at the ballot—meaning pretending to be someone else while voting or filling out the ballot card as someone else— gets a penalty of six months in jail. Voting more than once in the same election on accident gets someone 10 penalty units which is a fine of about 198 US dollars; voting multiple times on purpose costs a person up to 60 penalty units and 12 months in jail. After serving their time and paying the fines, the citizen still gets to vote in the next election.

In Connecticut, the punishment for voting when not legally qualified or voting more than once is a fine of up to $500, one to two years in prison, and disenfranchisement (losing the right to vote). When a US citizen is given the right to vote, it is just that: a right. A right is an entitlement or freedom, in this case, to vote. Unless someone has given up their rights in prison, they should be able to have those rights regardless of what they did in the past.

One solution to not making it harder to vote, while at the same time lowering election fraud and not taking away the US citizens’ right to vote would be to raise the penalty like in Australia as well as jail time and even making the offender only vote in person at state voting polls instead of county ones. This way, the offenders would receive more punishments while retaining their rights.

Moving Forward

Although election fraud is a very minimal problem, making each election perfectly fair is virtually impossible. As more people were allowed to vote, it became more fair in a way, but with more people there will always be more problems. One step this country can make, however, is not to make more laws restricting voting, but to make more laws for punishments. It is possible to make voting more accurate while also maintaining the heart of “The Land Of The Free.”