Trump offers $1 million bounty for ‘voter fraud’ ahead of Election Day

President Donald Trump is offering $1 million to anyone who reports cases of “voter fraud” in past elections or the 2026 midterms if it leads to a conviction.

“Anybody reporting Voter Fraud in the past Elections, or the upcoming 2026 Midterm Election, will be paid $1,000,000 upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the Fraud! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president said in a social media post. 

The announcement represents Trump’s latest attempt to present fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens — a vanishingly rare phenomenon — as a widespread problem that threatens the integrity of U.S. elections.

Individuals charged with illegally voting can face steep fines and long prison terms. 

Case in point: In 2016, Crystal Mason cast a provisional ballot in Texas, not realizing that she was ineligible to vote because she was under federal supervised release. Though her vote was never counted, she was convicted of voting illegally two years later and faced up to five years in prison. Her conviction was only overturned on appeal in 2024.

Since returning to office last year, Trump has launched a sustained attack on voting and elections, hiring multiple election deniers to find evidence of fraud, which he falsely blames for his loss in the 2020 presidential race.

So far, they’ve come up empty-handed. In recent months, several well-known election conspiracy theorists have even exited the administration.

The $1 million voter fraud bounty isn’t Trump’s first attempt to ply Americans with large sums of cash ahead of the midterms. In September, he said that every American would receive a $5,000 payout only if Republicans win the elections.