In the weeks and months before Election Day, Heritage experts made sure Americans understood the importance of election integrity and the vulnerabilities of mail-in voting. And in the days after Nov. 3, as Americans awaited election results,Heritage became an even more important resource to understand what’s at stake.
The 2020 presidential race brought these concerns to the forefront in multiple states and exposed Heritage’s research to millions of Americans.
Heritage’s Election Fraud Database, a thoroughly sourced list of proven instances of election fraud, showcases 1,298 instances of voter fraud from 47 states. Heritage added over 50 cases to the database in 2020 and will continue to update it.
The database presents a sampling of election fraud cases from across the country. It is not an exhaustive or comprehensive list, but it is intended to demonstrate the vulnerabilities in the election system and the many ways in which fraud is committed.
Heritage’s database saw a huge surge in online traffic—more than 1,000%—in the days after Nov. 3 as the American people searched for factual information on the impact of fraud on elections.
The Election Fraud Database is backed up by detailed references to government documents and media reports. It is systematic, accurate, and based on verifiable information. For this reason, the database is regularly cited by academics, the news media, and government leaders across the ideological spectrum. //
The Federal Elections Commission, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, The Washington Post, CBS, NPR, Yahoo News, Epoch Times, The Hill, Roll Call, and Newsweek are just some of the organizations to cite the database.
Heritage’s election integrity work is led by Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow and manager of Heritage’s Election Law Reform Initiative. He and his Meese Center colleagues regularly work with state secretaries of state, brief lawmakers and testified before Congress, produce scholarly research, and conduct hundreds of media interviews.
Heritage scholars have published 49 articles on various issues related to election integrity, especially pushing back on universal mail-voting. This included eight major scholarly papers (list below).
