The Post editorial: Investigations into voter fraud suggest it is minimal, bipartisan and shouldn’t cause alarm.

During the 2016 election cycle, Donald Trump infamously sought to cast doubt on the integrity of voting systems by arguing that if he lost his supporters should interpret the defeat as proof of a rigged election. He even said he wouldn’t concede a loss.

After his surprising victory, Trump argued that as many as 5 million votes cast illegally during the 2016 presidential election cost him the popular vote.

Numerous fact checkers have judged the statement to be false, and the country’s secretaries of state have certified their elections and found no evidence of widespread wrongdoing, but questions about voter fraud persist. No doubt, such questions will live on for some time, and they will do so even if Trump’s commission on voter fraud doesn’t find the massive wrongdoing the president is looking for.

Against this worrisome backdrop, it’s good news to read that a recent study by Colorado’s secretary of state, Wayne Williams, in conjunction with counterparts in four other states, found scant evidence of fraud.

Ten of the nearly 3 million Colorado voters who turned in ballots in the 2016 presidential race may have voted twice, and 38 voters may have voted here and in another state.

In all, the study found 112 instances of possible fraudulent voting in five states. The review, arranged before Trump’s campaign trail claims of fraud, included two other mail-ballot states, Oregon and Washington, and two traditional, in-person states, Delaware and Maryland.

The 112 instances of suspected illegal voting were found in an examination of 11.5 million voter records.

It’s possible that local investigators now in possession of the secretaries’ findings could result in some of the total suspected fraud cases being ruled accidental or administrative errors, further lowering the total. But even if all 112 represent legitimate fraud, the finding hardly suggests Trump’s worries about massive illegal voting on the part of the Democratic Party can be considered remotely reliable.

“A very small percentage of the 2.9 million votes cast in Colorado in the 2016 election look to be improper,” Williams, a Republican, said in written statement. He added, quite rightly, that “even that small number deserves our vigilant pursuit.”

We take heart in such vigilance. Voter fraud does occur, and it always has. No amount of it should be accepted. Last year, a CBS4 investigation found multiple cases in which others used ballots for dead people to participate in recent elections. Williams is working with multi-state systems and federal agencies to try to more quickly purge records of deceased voters from the roles.

More recently, chair of the Colorado Republican Party from 1997-1999, Steve Curtis, has been charged with using his ex-wife’s ballot to vote twice here, after a report from Fox 31 discovered the alleged double-voting. Now a talk show host on KLZ-AM in Aurora, Curtis focused a show on voter fraud early last October, calling the wrongdoing a unique feature of the Democratic Party.

A democracy depends on the citizens’ trust that votes are being cast legally and tallied accurately.

We’re glad state officials here and elsewhere are seeking to monitor the system as well as continue to upgrade it against opportunities for abuse.

But the facts on the ground suggest that contemporary voter fraud is minimal, and when it occurs, it does so in bipartisan fashion. An informed electorate should take comfort in the fact that adults across the political spectrum are minding the store. The members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are William Dean Singleton, chairman; Mac Tully, CEO and publisher; Chuck Plunkett, editor of the editorial pages; Megan Schrader, editorial writer; and Cohen Peart, opinion editor.