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Please note!
This fact brief was originally published as an experiment to test the concepts behind fact briefs.
Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of useful information in fact briefs like this one, not all of them reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Do fake ID cards pose a threat to fair elections?

By Christopher Hutton
NO

Voting with a fake ID document is not a major threat to election security, given advance registration processes, polling-day ID requirements in two-thirds of the states and the difficulty of organizing in numbers sufficient to have an impact on the outcome.

A Heritage Foundation database, listing 1,300 credible cases of voter fraud since 1979, notes 13 cases of "impersonation fraud at the polls." "This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election," a law professor wrote in 2014, "which is why it rarely happens."

Voting with a deceased person's stolen identity is theoretically possible, as voter records rarely purge the deceased. In 2019, an undocumented immigrant in San Antonio was indicted for using a deceased man's identity to acquire key legal documents and to vote several times over a twenty-five year period.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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