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What is voter fraud?

Any illegal tampering with the results of an election is a form of voter fraud. This can take the form of intimidation or threats of violence against voters, vote buying, misrecording of votes, destruction or invalidation of ballots, tampering with electronic voting machines, and more.

The most commonly discussed type of voter fraud is in-person voter fraud. In its September 2014 report ”Issues Related to State Voter Identification Laws,” the Government Accountability Office defined in-person voter fraud as “involving a person who (1) attempts to vote or votes; (2) in person at the polling place; and (3) asserts an identity that is not the person’s own, whether it be that of a fictional registered voter, dead registered voter, a false identity, or whether the voter uses a fraudulent identification.”

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