Okay, we know that the occasional sporadic illegal vote happens here and there. And we know that local elections are sometimes decided by just ± a few votes. So if @D_Anconia says a local election in his secret area was decided by a questionable vote, I’ll give him that.
The whole discussion, in this thread and in the wider public debate, totally overlooks the hippopotamus in the room, I think.
Here is the problem that is not mentioned enough: Every voter who legitimately should have been allowed to vote, and who wanted to vote, but who was unable to vote, is every bit as serious a voting violation as every unauthorized voter who did vote.
Every stupid little rule that is made (mostly by Republicans) on the ostensible theory of eliminating voter fraud tends to have the effect of disenfranchising far more voters than the number of illegal votes prevented. Every one of those wrongfully disenfranchised voters is every bit as much a fraud against democracy as every one of the illegal votes, and there are generally vastly more of them.
That is the whole idea of all these voter ID laws; having fewer polling places so that voters must travel farther to vote and wait in long lines; possibly not even getting in to vote before the polls close; eliminating drop boxes and drive-through voting; forbidding anyone from giving food or water to people waiting in long lines, etc.
Every one of those measures tends to obstruct wanna-be voters from voting, or at least makes it difficult and discourages them, which will be enough to stop a lot of voters. Everyone knows this. Nobody disputes this – the Republicans openly justify voter suppression by caterwauling about “voter fraud”. Hardly anybody ever responds by pointing out how many more legitimate votes are prevented. Hardly anybody argues that every suppressed legitimate vote is as serious a violation as every fraudulent vote, and there are so many more of them.
(I think some Supreme Court justices may have mentioned it occasionally, but that’s about it.)