Are American Elections Secure? A Deep Dive into Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

The United States of America is the strongest democracy in the world — having withstood tyranny for 250 years.

But this week, President Trump used his primetime address to allege China compromised our voter data, that our election system is "catastrophically" broken, and that dead people and non-citizens are flooding the rolls.

It’s up to us as citizens to dig for the truth and stand up for our great nation and the electoral systems that support it.

Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

Trump claims China "carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history" during 2020 election

Trump alleged that China illicitly acquired 220 million voter files from 18 states and used that information to influence the 2020 election.
There is no evidence that China stole this information. Even if China were to access this data, there is no way for them to steal it. Most voter information (names, addresses, party affiliation) is already public record in many states, meaning anyone can access it.
Most importantly, Trump did not have any evidence that China had used this information to alter voting systems or to influence election outcomes. Previous FBI and National Intelligence Council reviews found no evidence that China meddled in the election in any way.

Trump claims the U.S. election system "falls catastrophically short" of standard where "cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible."

Trump claimed our elections are vulnerable to cheating and fraud because of electronic voting and ballot-counting systems.
- The idea that American machines could be “easily compromised” was derived from a declassified report about a hypothetical vulnerability in a system specific to Venezuela, and is unused in American elections.
Cybersecurity officials have repeatedly affirmed the opposite, with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency calling the 2020 Election “the most secure election in American history."
Post-election audits in Georgia and Pennsylvania also confirmed the accuracy of the 2024 results

Trump claims "hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people" are "active on the voter rolls"

Voter fraud is not rampant. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, has found only around 68 total instances of noncitizen voting nationwide across five decades.
Voting in a deceased person’s name is similarly rare, and most states cross-check death records before an election to ensure these votes are not counted.
- Exceptions: Some states will count the vote of a person who has died. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 10 states count an absentee ballot cast by a voter who died before Election Day, and Connecticut will count a deceased voter's ballot if the individual was a member of the armed services.

Trump claims mail-in ballots are "inherently corrupt"

Research confirms the opposite. Mail ballot fraud has only occurred roughly 0.000043% of the time across the four most recent general elections.
Notably, the President himself voted by mail in a 2026 Florida special election.

Trump claims NBC, ABC, CNN didn't cover his speech "because they know how corrupt our system is and they don't want to reveal it."

ABC, NBC, and CNN actually did cover Trump’s speech, however, it was on their websites and YouTube instead of their primary broadcast feed.
CBS ran the speech with careful fact checks throughout, including both before and after statements
These networks did not steam the speech because streaming false election fraud claims is a liability.
- Background: Fox News reached a $787.5 million settlement in April 2023, avoiding a trial in a major $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit after airing false conspiracy theories that Dominion Voting Systems voting machines rigged the 2020 presidential election.