Democracy Dies in Voter Fraud

For if they are not, it means that once again the election was so close that the winner will likely be determined by lawyers and the courts, and charges of electoral fraud will proliferate. America’s badly frayed social fabric may not survive another such confrontation.

If, however, the polls headed into the 2024 election reflect reality, the United States appears headed for another nail-biter, of the type that has become the rule rather than the exception. In the 2000 presidential election, the result came down to 537 contested ballots in Florida, and was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. Donald Trump’s winning margin in 2016 in the crucial battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania was less than the number of votes siphoned off from Hillary Clinton by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. And in 2020, a shift of 47,000 votes in three states, out of nearly 160 million cast, would have changed the result in Trump’s favor.

The closeness of our elections puts a premium on public trust in the results. As then-US attorney general William Barr said on the eve of the 2020 election: “We are a closely divided country. People have to have confidence in the results of elections and the legitimacy of the government.” Anything that calls into question the legitimacy of elections, Barr told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, is “reckless and dangerous.”

Yet Americans across party lines entertain grave doubts about cheating affecting the results of elections. In a June 2024 Rasmussen poll, 66% of voters described themselves as very or somewhat concerned that the 2024 vote will be compromised, including 55% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 83% of Republicans.