Patch Survey: Majority Trust The 2020 Election Results
Most voters believe that mail-in balloting is safe and reliable and that the 2020 election results can be trusted, but significant minorities disagree strongly on both counts, according to Patch's 20-state survey about the contentious campaign and its aftermath.
Asked whether they have confidence that results of the national election, including former Vice President Joe Biden's victory in the presidential race, are fair and accurate, more than 60 percent of some 23,000 respondents said they did.
But more than a third said they didn't — perhaps echoing President Donald Trump's bitter but unsubstantiated claims about election fraud.
"The voting process for 2020 was a complete scam," one Pennsylvania respondent commented for the survey. "Mail-ins should be reserved for the (infirm) or elderly. Our right to vote is one of America's last great freedoms and should be done fairly. How can we trust a process that wasn't in full view nor represented by both sides? "
But many voters dismissed doubts about the efficiency and fairness of the American electoral system.
"The ability to cast one's vote is one of the most important rights in this country," a Florida respondent wrote. "It should be made as easy as possible to ensure that every citizen's voice and choice is included. My ballot came in plenty of time for me to research all the candidates, and dropping my completed ballot couple of miles from my home was as easy as can be."
As one Illinois voter put it, "The real story is that as a voter and poll watcher I saw voters and election officials of both parties working together earnestly to vote, be sure every vote counted, and keep each other safe during a pandemic. This was true 99% of the time as I observed and I am confident this was true across the country."
And some commenters took the president to task for undermining confidence in the system.
"It's a shame you have to ask these questions about fairness and accuracy," a Virginia respondent said. "In any other election, they wouldn't be an issue. But Trump and his sycophants have made it one because he lost. If he'd won, they'd be as quiet as church mice."
The above figures and comments were culled from 20 separate state surveys published on Patch sites Tuesday through Thursday and emailed to Patch subscribers. The questions varied somewhat from state the state, but all the surveys contained the questions referred to in this article.
The survey is not a scientific poll, with random sampling and weighting by race education or other factors, but should be viewed as a broad gauge of public sentiment.
The survey suggests that concern about the coronavirus pandemic had a profound effect on the method people chose to vote. Only a quarter of respondents said they voted in person on Election Day, while 57 percent voted absentee.
Among those who voted absentee, the vast majority said they dropped off their ballots at approved sites rather than entrust them to the mail - reflecting widespread fears that mailed ballots would not be delivered in time to be counted. Only 16 percent of respondents said they mailed in their votes.
More than a third of respondents distrusted mail-in voting for other reasons; they expressed a lack of confidence that mail-in voting is safe and fraud-free. That sentiment likely reflects the president's repeated criticisms of the practice, despite the lack of evidence for his claims.
Contrasting comments from two voters in Pennsylvania and Illinois give some idea of the range of views on this topic.
"If people are willing to receive paychecks, tax refunds, banking information, and other important documents by mail, then they by default trust that the mail system is safe and works," the Pennsylvania voter said. "Voting by mail should always be an option, pandemic or not. "
"I voted early, in person," the Illinois voter said. "Mass mail-out ballots should be illegal. You cannot certify who the person was that actually filled out that ballot."
The survey also suggested that voters were a bit more likely to trust the election results in their own states than in the nation as a whole.
But voters in some states were far more likely express confidence in the results than voters in other states: In Virginia and Minnesota, for example, more than 70 percent of voters said they trust the results at both state and national levels, but in New Jersey less than half did.
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This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch
