GEOFF BENNETT: Ahead of the midterm elections, the Department of Justice is leading a high-profile effort to catch and prosecute people they say illegally cast ballots, sometimes holding televised press conferences to make the announcements.

TODD BLANCHE, U.S.

Attorney General: Voter fraud erodes the public's trust in our electoral system, and it's vital to our democratic process that we do everything that we can to restore that trust.

GEOFF BENNETT: But there is no evidence to support President Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud that skew election results.

Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogin, is here with more.

So, Ali, help us understand the scope of the DOJ effort so far.

ALI ROGIN: Yes, so far, they have announced indictments or charges of voter fraud against about 100 individuals.

They say there are hundreds more of these cases that they are investigating, and they have been releasing information on these handfuls at a time.

So, last week, it was 10 individuals out of Minnesota.

This week, so far it's been six from a number of states.

And they also note that they have done more on this issue so far than the Biden administration did over four years, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: And what sorts of cases are they prosecuting?

ALI ROGIN: Most of these charges come against noncitizens who tend to be green card holders, but those people cannot vote in federal elections.

And the allegations are that they falsely claimed citizenship in order to vote.

The DOJ is also going after people who they say deliberately tried to block access to or destroy ballots, and that includes one former postal worker in Utah who allegedly destroyed 300 mail-in ballots that he was supposed to deliver.

GEOFF BENNETT: And none of this is evidence supporting President Trump's unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

ALI ROGIN: That's correct.

Even though the DOJ is stepping up the scope and the tempo of these allegations and of the charges, they don't amount to anything close to the widespread voter interference that would actually change the election results.

And these are well-fact-checked claims.

After the 2020 election, the AP investigated claims that the Trump team had filed of voter fraud in six states.

And what they found was that there were 475 potential instances out of more than 25 million votes cast.

That's potential, not definite cases of voter fraud.

And, of course, that would not have made a difference in the outcome of the election.

But a DOJ spokesperson tells me, Geoff, that each vote that is cast illegally cancels out an American citizens' vote, and that federal races often share the ballot with downballot races for state and local candidates, where the margins are sometimes much closer.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Ali, what's the DOJ's track record in successfully prosecuting these cases?

ALI ROGIN: Well, so far, our own review shows that they are announcing far more charges than they are convictions.

And I asked David Becker from the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research about this.

And he said it's not surprising that we're hearing more about charges than successful convictions, because it's tricky to prosecute and determine whether people deliberately voted when they shouldn't have.

DAVID BECKER, Executive Director, Center for Election Innovation and Research: It's going to be difficult for the DOJ to take some of these cases where some -- where a noncitizen might have been misled by a government employee or misunderstood what was happening and accidentally got registered, and then received something in the mail saying that they could vote and here's where to go vote.

And if they might have done that once out of a misunderstanding, it's going to be really difficult to convince a jury that they should be convicted of the crime of noncitizen voting.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Ali, what else is the administration doing to address what they see as a systemic problem in election administration?

ALI ROGIN: Yes, we're learning more about efforts to deploy up to 1,000 election monitors on Election Day this year, which would be about double the number of DOJ election monitors that were out in the field in 2024.

Also, yesterday, President Trump reportedly met with former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted after allowing unauthorized access to voting equipment after the 2020 elections, and that was in an effort to prove unsubstantiated election fraud, because she believes that President Trump rightfully won the election.

She was convicted and released this year after her sentence was commuted.

And our colleague Liz Landers asked the White House about this meeting, and they didn't confirm it directly.

But what they did do was send her a raft of information about these alleged cases of voter fraud that the DOJ is investigating, and they told her -- quote -- "The evidence of voter fraud keeps piling up."

So this is clearly something that the White House is really trying to push ahead of the elections, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: Justice correspondent Ali Rogin.

Ali, thanks, as always.

ALI ROGIN: You bet.