Does Arizona’s Maricopa County have more election fraud than developing countries?

There is no evidence to suggest that the United States, nor Maricopa County specifically, has experienced widespread election fraud.  The U.S. ranked above every nation on the U.N. ‘s least developed countries list on the Free and Fair Election Index, an indicator developed by the Swedish V-Dem Institute, which researches democracy and human rights. The index is based on the absence of election irregularities, like fraudulent registrations, government intimidation or vote-buying.

The U.S. has safeguards in place to protect free and fair elections, including a decentralized system that gives states much of the responsibility for election administration. Arizona has some of the most stringent election laws in the country, such as requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in state races, logic and accuracy testing of voting systems ahead of elections and hand count audits of election results.

This fact brief responds to conversations such as this one.

The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs, or quick-response fact checks, about trending claims relating to Arizona.