by Bronson Winslow

 

Americans are less likely to trust the fairness and accuracy of an election if results take “days or weeks” to be counted, according to a new poll.

When asked if results that took “days or weeks” to tabulated were more or less trustworthy, 33.9% of respondents said that it is “much less likely,” and 20.9% said that it is “somewhat less likely,” according to the Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action poll. Across party lines, 62.7% of Republicans, 27% of independents, and 10.4% of Democrats said that they were “much less likely” to trust results that took “days or weeks” to tabulate.

“The majority of Americans are now skeptical about the outcomes of elections, which creates a fundamental problem that—if left unchecked—could undermine our entire democracy,” President of the Convention of States Mark Meckler said in a statement.

Many states experienced delays in ballot tabulation following the 2022 midterm elections, as election centers struggled to count votes that were received in the mail following Election Day. Arizona, California, Maine, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado continued to count ballots over a week past the midterm elections, as many of the states allowed mail in ballots, postmarked by election day, to arrive by Nov. 15.

However, when asked about election fairness and accuracy, the majority of respondents at least somewhat trusted election results. Of 1,084 respondents, 21.9% of respondents said that they “strongly distrust” election results, with 17.9% saying they “somewhat distrust” them, according to the poll.

Before the midterm elections, election integrity was a leading priority for voters, according to Rasmussen Reports. Of likely voters, 84% would be a major issue in the midterm elections.

“The answer does not lie in Washington, DC, this problem can and must be fixed close to home. State legislatures need to make strengthening election integrity priority number one, and governors need to focus on vigorous enforcement. Until we get the problem under control, this needs to be treated as the state-by-state emergency that it is,” Meckler continued.

The poll was conducted from Nov. 16 to Nov. 20 with a margin of error of 2.9%.

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Bronson Winslow is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Election Day 2022” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.

 

 

 


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