A week before the midterm elections, Donald Trump announced on Monday that he will pay one million dollars to anyone who reports electoral fraud in past elections or in the upcoming congressional elections on November 3, provided that the report leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
"Anyone who reports electoral fraud in the past elections, or in the upcoming midterm elections of 2026, will receive a payment of 1,000,000 dollars following the arrest and conviction of those who committed such fraud!" wrote the president on his platform Truth Social.
The announcement did not specify where the funds would come from, which agency would manage the program, or how complaints would be submitted, leading legal experts to question its viability.
The law professor from the University of California, Los Angeles Richard Hasen expressed skepticism about Trump fulfilling the promise and warned that he might later attempt to present it as a political exaggeration. According to NBC News, Hasen also warned that the initiative contributes to establishing the idea of fraud as a widespread problem, fueling distrust in the electoral system.
The offer is part of Trump's long history of . On Saturday, after voting early in Florida, he stated to the press: «I ran and won in 2016, and I also won in 2020, but things didn't turn out that way. It was a rigged election, but I won by millions of votes».
Trump has never acknowledged his defeat against the Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, despite courts in multiple states, the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr, and the federal cybersecurity agency CISA rejecting his claims.
In July 2026, documents from the White House itself concluded that there was no fraud in those elections. Nevertheless, on July 16, Trump reiterated those accusations in a prime-time speech without providing evidence.
The offer recalls the practices of Elon Musk, an ally of the president, whose organization America PAC raffled off one million dollars a day among registered voters in pivotal states who signed a petition, a practice that led to lawsuits for potential vote buying and that Musk ultimately resolved out of court in 2026, according to CNN.
For this midterm election, Musk has allocated between 275 and 369 million dollars to Republican groups.
U.S. federal law prohibits offering anything of value to influence voting, with penalties of up to two years in prison, although Trump's reward is framed as payment for information, not as a direct incentive for voting.
The electoral context is unfavorable for the Republicans: Trump's approval rating has dropped to historic lows between 34% and 39%, and polls favor the Democrats, who could regain control of the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority of just four seats.
A survey by The Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos revealed that 70% of Americans do not trust that Trump will accept the results if his party loses on November 3.
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