Voter fraud is the illegal interference with the process of an election on the part of a voter. It can consist of attempts to vote multiple times (perhaps by registration in multiple locales), attempting to vote when you are not legally registered (convicted felons lose the right to vote for life), or any form of vote buying. 

In August 2016, three months before the presidential election, and in an unprecedented statement for a major party nominee, Trump said he was afraid the election would be “rigged.” The claim was largely viewed in the media as an intentional distraction from a disastrous few days after his criticism of Gold Star parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq. But the statement became a common thread through his campaign stops as the election drew closer with Trump even going so far as to encourage supporters to go to the polls and monitor voters.

In his campaign speeches Trump returned to three points with regularity:

• “People that have died 10 years ago are still voting.”
• There is a massive problem with “illegal immigrants [who] are voting.”
• “Voter fraud is very, very, common.”

These statements have been proven false.  

When Trump won the election in November, most expected the voter fraud narrative to die away. But as Hillary Clinton supporters repeatedly pointed to the profound discrepancy between the popular vote and the Electoral College results, Trump and his team began to tweet out statements suggesting he would have won the popular vote if illegal immigrants hadn’t voted. When these claims were widely denounced, Trump doubled down in true Trump fashion and announced he would be issuing an executive order initiating an investigation into voter fraud in the election.

This page will track Trump’s record regarding voter fraud and any investigations into the issue.

Timeline