USAupdated 1h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 13 March 2020Donald Trump Offers $1 Million Reward For Voter Fraud Tips Leading To Conviction
16 Western Mainstream3 Other1 Western AlternativePhoto: The White House / US federal government, Public domain · Cropped for layout
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Trump offered a $1 million reward for information leading to convictions of electoral fraud. Payment would occur upon arrest and conviction; funding source remains unspecified.
$1M Reward, Election Doubt
President Donald Trump offered a $1m (£750,000) reward to people who report cases of voter fraud in the United States that lead to a conviction, framing the offer around the upcoming midterm elections on 3 November and past elections. Trump also said he would accept the result of the midterm elections only if they are “clean,” telling reporters: “I will, if they are clean elections.”
Trump tied the reward to a condition that payment would follow “the arrest and conviction of those responsible,” and the offer was described as applying to reports of fraud in the “upcoming 2026 Midterm Election” as well as “past Elections.” BBC Verify said studies suggest actual cases of postal voting and non-citizens voting fraud are extremely rare, and it cited Brookings Institution analysis of electoral data collected by the Heritage Foundation that counted only 39 cases of fraud among more than 100 million ballots examined in 32 elections in Pennsylvania over three decades.
Postal Voting and Voter ID
BBC Verify said Trump alleged “rampant” cheating in postal voting and non-citizens voting, while it reported that studies suggest actual cases are extremely rare. BBC Verify said about 48 million people cast postal ballots in the 2024 presidential election, and it reported that Trump signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to only deliver ballots to voters on lists of citizens compiled by government agencies.
BBC Verify reported that the US Supreme Court rejected the changes, calling them “arbitrary and capricious” while saying it could revisit the issue afterwards. BBC Verify also quoted voting rights expert Jonathan Diaz saying, “We don't have a national ID card that the government gives out, unlike a lot of countries,” and it reported that a 2023 survey by the Brennan Center for Justice suggested about 21.3 million voting-age American citizens, or about 9%, do not have documents proving citizenship readily available.
Evidence, Arrests, and Stakes
The Guardian reported that Trump reiterated his $1m reward before boarding Air Force One for a campaign rally in Mississippi, and it quoted Trump saying, “I’m also going to be issuing a $1m bonus or reward, or whatever you want to call it, for anybody that reports voter fraud, leading to the arrest and conviction of somebody.”
The Guardian said California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict alleged noncitizen voting, accusing it of “politicizing and weaponizing the law”.
NewsNation said the Department of Homeland Security described “rooting out” 1,600 cases of alleged election fraud and illegal voting, and it reported that DHS also suggested there are potentially 300,000 more illegally registered voters who could be targeted for investigation.
NewsNation said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, argued that “They have tried to manufacture evidence of widespread noncitizen voting, and every time they do, their numbers are incredibly small,” and it reported that Hearst Television’s National Investigative Unit found 513 proven cases of voter fraud that led to criminal convictions or court actions since 2016.