WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States would pay $1 million to anyone who reports voter fraud that leads to an arrest and conviction, barely a week before midterm elections that polls suggest could prove difficult for his Republican Party, according to Reuters.
"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!" Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Speaking to reporters minutes later, before boarding Air Force One to travel to Corinth, Mississippi, for a campaign rally, he repeated the offer: "I’m also going to be issuing a $1 million bonus or reward, or whatever you want to call it, for anybody that reports voter fraud, leading to the arrest and conviction of somebody."
Trump did not say whether the rewards would be paid from government funds or his own resources, and the administration has not publicly explained how the offer would operate — who would judge whether a tip qualifies, how claims would be submitted, or how it relates to existing federal whistleblower programmes. Last week the administration rolled out a separate programme offering tipsters a 1 percent commission on money recovered from fraud in government programmes, with no stated limit, and the Justice Department announced a $30,000 bounty for tips leading to fraud charges, with an emphasis on social services, according to the New York Post.
The reward is the latest in a series of cash offers the president has made ahead of the November 3 vote. According to USA Today, Trump has sent $500 rebate checks to about 1 million Americans he said were overcharged through the Affordable Care Act’s federal exchange, and $90 payments to 21 million seniors drawn from a Medicare improvement fund, and he has promised $5,000 dividend checks to all American adults if Republicans win control of Congress — an offer some of his own allies have criticised as an attempt to buy votes.
Trump has a long history of making claims of widespread voter fraud that courts and election officials have not substantiated, particularly involving mail-in voting, and he sought unsuccessfully to overturn his 2020 election loss on such claims, which were rejected in court, USA Today noted. Documented fraud cases do occur — including ballots cast for deceased relatives or false mail-ballot applications — but they are generally isolated and caught. A tracker maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation has documented more than 1,600 fraud cases over four decades, a tiny share of the billions of votes cast in that period.
At the same appearance, Trump also attacked Sunday’s presidential result in Brazil, in which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term, calling the election "rigged" and saying it "looked so corrupt, so terrible." Lula defeated Flávio Bolsonaro by more than 4 million votes, according to the reported count. With early voting already under way across the United States and control of both chambers of Congress at stake, election officials say the mechanics of the reward — if it is formalised at all — will matter as much as the headline figure. Read the Reuters report at reuters.com.
