Three Years After the Insurrection, Voters Are Not Confident About Election Security
By Kate Sosland
Three years ago, Donald Trump and his political allies attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In their attempt to do so, they spread misinformation that dead people, illegal immigrants, and prisoners had cast illegitimate ballots. Trump filed 62 lawsuits to dispute the 2020 presidential election results following Joe Biden’s victory, nearly all of which have been dropped, dismissed, or ruled against.
Despite Trump’s failure to reverse the election results in federal and state courts, new Data for Progress polling finds that a majority of Republicans and nearly half of Independents are not confident that the 2020 presidential election was secure and free of wide-scale voter fraud. Specifically, 69% of Republicans and 48% of Independents say they are “not confident at all” or “only a little confident.”
Voter fraud is very rare in U.S. elections, but when voters are asked how often they think five different forms of voter fraud — including some of Trump’s unsubstantiated accusations — occur in U.S. elections, a majority of Republicans and Independents think these types of voter fraud occur “often” or “sometimes.” In particular, 80% or more of Republican voters think non-U.S. citizens vote illegally (80%), votes are being cast on behalf of dead people (82%), and mail-in and absentee ballots are not being recorded correctly (84%).
We then provided respondents with a series of three informational treatments on common election security protocols in the U.S. to test if learning more about election security protocols would increase voters’ confidence in American elections. The first message described post-election audits, which directly compare paper ballots or records with results produced by voting machines. The second message described poll-book audits, which match poll books to ballots to ensure an accurate number of votes were cast. The third message described the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a tool used by 25 states to catch inaccurate voter registration and remove deceased and ineligible voters from voter rolls.
Before receiving any of the informational treatments, 56% of voters said they were “very confident” or “somewhat confident” about the security of future elections — including 82% of Democrats, 51% of Independents, and 32% of Republicans. That level of confidence doesn’t change much, however, after voters receive the three informational treatments and learn about election security protocols. When asked the same question after the treatments, 58% of voters — including 84% of Democrats, 56% of Independents, and 32% of Republicans — say they are very confident or somewhat confident about the security of future elections. These are all within the margin of error of our initial ask.
These findings exemplify that Republican and Independent voters widely mistrust election security protocols. Furthermore, informational treatments on post-election audits, poll-book audits, and the Electronic Registration Information Center do not have a statistically significant impact on voters’ confidence in election security.
Kate Sosland (@kate_sosland) is the communications intern at Data for Progress.