Why America should fear gerrymandering, not voter fraud

The 2026 midterms are fast approaching, and discussions of voter fraud are ubiquitous. Yet election manipulation is certain to occur during the midterms — though much of it will have little to do with how votes are cast or counted.  

Rather, it is how congressional maps were redrawn in several states over the past year to ensure that certain candidates would win their seats. In doing so, and by shifting attention away from partisan district boundaries to the voters themselves, politicians have normalized map meddling while guiding voters to look for threats in all the wrong places. 

Since 2020, there has been a new standard mode of operation spreading for elected officials; they either win their election, or if they lose, they claim that the election was stolen from them.  

Those claiming stolen elections have been from both the Republican and Democratic parties. The phenomenon has become more visible, amplified by social media, dating back to the 2020 election when Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Trump. However, it was heard even in 2016, when then candidate Donald Trump, anticipating a loss to Hillary Clinton, preemptively claimed that the election could be rigged against him. After Trump won, Clinton proceeded to claim that the election was stolen from her. 

The issue up for debate is whether election vote counts can be manipulated to yield a different outcome. In theory, they can. However, the more salient issue is whether such manipulation can be executed with no evidence left behind for others to uncover during audits or recounts.  

There are numerous ways that states conduct elections and count votes.........

© The Hill