How do states ensure dead people鈥檚 ballots aren鈥檛 counted?
Election officials regularly check death records. In many states, vital statistics agencies of people who have died, which officials use to update voter registration files.
Election clerks may also check for voter deaths through other means, such as coordinating with motor vehicle departments to track canceled driver鈥檚 licenses, searching for published obituaries or processing letters from the deceased person鈥檚 estate.
Even if a dead voter's ballot mistakenly gets mailed, and voter fraud laws create additional safeguards against anyone else filling it out and submitting it. Voters who forge dead relatives鈥� signatures on ballots can face fines, probation or prison. And in some states, absentee voting requirements such as witness signatures or notarization add an extra barrier to prevent this rare form of voter fraud.
After the 2020 presidential election, former President Donald Trump and his supporters on behalf of dead voters, even naming specific deceased people whose ballots were supposedly counted.
But these claims, which spread in many states including , , , , and , were found to be false.
When Arizona鈥檚 attorney general investigated claims that 282 dead people鈥檚 ballots were cast in 2020, he found .
When Republican lawmakers in Michigan a list of over 200 supposedly dead voters in Wayne County, . The first was due to a clerical error in which a son had been confused with his dead father and the second involved a 92-year-old woman who had submitted her ballot early, then died four days before the election.
Whether or not a vote like hers counts depends on state law.
At least 11 states 鈥� nine by statute and two based on attorney general opinions 鈥� prohibit counting votes from absentee voters who cast a ballot, then die before Election Day, while nine states specifically allow it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states are silent on the matter.
Election integrity groups scouring voter files often mistake a living voter for a deceased voter if they have similar names, birthdays or hometowns, resulting in false fraud claims, said Jason Roberts, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
鈥淵ou might think it鈥檚 weird that someone with the same name and the same date of birth died, but it鈥檚 actually not that strange when you think about a 350 million person country,鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淚t happens a lot.鈥�
There are occasional instances of voter fraud by impersonating a dead person. For example, a Las Vegas man admitted voting his dead wife鈥檚 ballot in 2020 and . A Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to voting his dead mother鈥檚 ballot in 2020 was .
However, Roberts said, only a handful of people try this type of fraud each election, making it 鈥渧ery, very rare.鈥�
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Ali Swenson, The Associated Press
