Voter fraud is when a person sells their vote, or impersonates a different voter.
Election fraud is when the people in charge of collecting the votes manipulate the vote total in some way, such discarding some of the votes of people from a known party, manipulating voting equipment to skew the tally.
Why does it matter? Because some people claim rampant voter fraud as an excuse for restricting voting rights, despite the fact it has been shown repeatedly to be inconsequential [1]. At the same time, election fraud is a more significant issue because it simply scales better, yet most people don't appreciate the difference between voter fraud and election fraud.
For a counter point see [2], the heritage foundation keeps a list of voter fraud cases. I'd argue it proves the opposite of their point. Their database goes back at least 15 years and 1000 cases out of hundreds of millions of votes cast in that period. Also, their list is maximalist -- including cases such as "Larry Reker, of Worthington, voted twice in a contentious Independent School District 518 bond referendum special election, once in person and once by absentee ballot".
Voter fraud is when a person sells their vote, or impersonates a different voter.
Election fraud is when the people in charge of collecting the votes manipulate the vote total in some way, such discarding some of the votes of people from a known party, manipulating voting equipment to skew the tally.
Why does it matter? Because some people claim rampant voter fraud as an excuse for restricting voting rights, despite the fact it has been shown repeatedly to be inconsequential [1]. At the same time, election fraud is a more significant issue because it simply scales better, yet most people don't appreciate the difference between voter fraud and election fraud.
For a counter point see [2], the heritage foundation keeps a list of voter fraud cases. I'd argue it proves the opposite of their point. Their database goes back at least 15 years and 1000 cases out of hundreds of millions of votes cast in that period. Also, their list is maximalist -- including cases such as "Larry Reker, of Worthington, voted twice in a contentious Independent School District 518 bond referendum special election, once in person and once by absentee ballot".
[1] https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/numbers-vo...
[2] https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?state=TX