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WASHINGTON – U.S. voters are significantly less confident in the accuracy of the presidential vote count than they were four years ago, and their plans for how to vote their own vote differ widely depending on which candidate they support, according to de new data from NBC News / Wall Street Journal August poll.
The poll found that 45% of voters are not convinced that the election results will be counted accurately, compared to 34% who said the same thing before the 2016 election.
The same proportion, 45%, is confident in the total vote count in 2020, against 59% four years ago.
When asked specifically about mail-in ballots – which President Donald Trump has said, without proof, are ripe for fraud and foreign interference – 44% of voters say they are confident that mail-in ballots will be counted with precision, while 51% disagree.
Overall, 30% of voters say they plan to vote by mail, 20% say they plan to vote early at an early polling location in person, and 43% plan to go to the polls in person on the day. of the ballot.
However, the results of the survey on voting and voting behavior are characterized by deep divisions by party and by presidential choice.
Supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden are much more likely than Trump supporters to say they plan to vote by mail. Nearly half – 47 percent – say they plan to mail their ballot, and an additional 21 percent say they will vote before election day at an early in-person voting site. Only about a quarter of Biden voters, 26%, plan to vote on election day at a polling station.
In contrast, two-thirds of Trump voters – 66% – say they will vote in person on election day. Only 11 percent say they plan to vote by mail, and 20 percent say they will vote in person early.
The results of the inquiry come as Trump has repeatedly tried to discredit the security of mail-in ballots (while also establishing an exception for votes cast by mail in his own state of Florida, where he will send his ballot. postal vote for the second time in this cycle.) And they fear the cost-cutting measures taken by Trump’s new Postmaster General, a major GOP donor, could cause delays that could lead to rejection dozens of ballot papers by mail.
“The 2020 election will be a socially siled affair, with Democrats much more likely to use the mailbox and Republicans to use the ballot box,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, whose Hart Research company conducted the poll. with the republican company Public Opinion Strategies. “What this means for the actual vote counting process and how the information is disseminated is of critical importance in building confidence in the system, which is already at a low point.”
Major partisan differences in election confidence
Republican voters on the whole have much less confidence in the election results than their Democratic counterparts.
Only 36% of Republicans say they are convinced that the results of the presidential election as a whole will be counted accurately, while only 23% say the same about ballots sent by mail. Nearly three-quarters, 73%, of Republicans believe that votes cast by mail will not be counted accurately.
Democrats are much more confident in the counting of all votes and in mail ballots in particular. Fifty-five percent of Democrats say they are confident in the total vote, and an even higher share – 65% – say they are confident in the count of mail-in ballots.
Partisan divisions also extend to what voters would like to see their state’s election administrators do to encourage mail-in votes during the current coronavirus crisis.
Overall, 54% prefer that voters in their state receive a request to vote in the mail that they must complete to receive a ballot in the mail (21%) or that they automatically receive a ballot by mail ready to drop off (33 percent.)
Trump explicitly rejected the second approach – where election administrators automatically send ballots to voters without a nomination process. But the first practice – encouraging voters by mail to apply to receive a ballot – is common among party members and outside groups on both sides of the aisle.
But among Republicans, three-quarters – 73% – reject both strategies.
Among Democrats, a majority – 53% – say voters in their state should automatically receive the ballots in the mail, with no requests required.
The NBC / WSJ poll was conducted August 9-12, 2020. The margin of error for 900 registered voters is +/- 3.27 percentage points.
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